


Nameless but for Titles

by JustTheBestAround



Series: The Eternal Companion [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: ACTUALLY more Doctor/Rose than in canon this time, Friendship, Gen, I promise the smooches are coming, Series 3 rewrite, canon angst, multi-season, ok, series two rewrite, this is gonna be a fun one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 76,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustTheBestAround/pseuds/JustTheBestAround
Summary: Ok, Katelyn is SURE she's got it this time. This world, with it's TARDIS's and time travel, this is her home. So does it really matter that she keeps getting these hints that she's something... different than she is? Nope. She's good. Just time to run around and save the world.
Relationships: Rose Tyler & Original Female Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Original Female Character(s), The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Series: The Eternal Companion [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1256561
Comments: 30
Kudos: 34





	1. The Impossible Planet

The TARDIS materialised with a sick wheeze. The Doctor made a confused and concerned face and stepped out the doors. Rose and I shared a look and followed. I could only get halfway out the door, the space we landed in was so tight. 

“I don't know what's wrong with her,” the Doctor said. He ran his hand over the side of the door. “She's sort of queasy.” I froze. “Indigestion, like she didn't want to land.” I could feel it too, but I wasn’t sure if it was my own fear or residual TARDIS that was currently turning my torso into puree.

_ The Impossible Planet.  _ I rubbed my tired eyes and took a deep, quiet breath, which only helped a little with the sick feeling in my stomach. No way I swung it, this was not going to be a horror story.

“Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble,” Rose started, a slow smile making its way across her face. “We could always get back inside and go somewhere else.” The Doctor and Rose burst into loud, wheezing laughter. I let out a not-as-weak-as-I-had- feared laugh in return. Rose turned around, still smiling, but clearly worried.

“Katelyn, you ok?” she asked.

“Yeah, just cold,” I half-lied. It  _ was _ cold. “I’ll just grab a jacket, then I’ll catch up with you guys.” I ducked back in the TARDIS before they could say anything and half shut the doors.

“Anyway,” the Doctor said, sounding mildly concerned. “I think we've landed inside a cupboard. Come on.”

“Open door 15,” the computer said.

I ran over to the console and stretched to place my hand on the time rotor in the middle. “It’s gonna be ok,” I promised. I don’t know if I could really comfort an entity that existed across all of time and space, but I wanted to try. “It’s gonna get really bad, but he’ll find you, I promise.” The TARDIS hummed comfort back, reminding me to take care of myself too. I nodded, grabbed a jacket from my stash of clothes under the console, and ran out after the others.

“Human design. You've got a thing about kits!” I heard the Doctor say. “This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger.” A pause. “And easier.”

“Is it sturdy enough?” I asked, to let them know I was there. 

The Doctor nodded at the ceiling. “Seems to be holding up well enough.

“Open door 17.” 

We stepped into a step down room with a table and some chairs. This whole base looked dirty, like it was a bit old and had seen better days. I kept my eyes as far away as I could from the writing on the opposite wall.

“Oh, it's a sanctuary base!” the Doctor said, sounding a delighted. “Deep Space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that-” The Doctor paused so we could hear the rumbling. “-underneath. Someone's drilling.” 

“What for, do you think?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the floor.

“Welcome to hell,” Rose said before the Doctor and I could get into a debate.

“Oh, it's not that bad,” the Doctor said. 

“Yet,” I whispered.

“No,” Rose laughed. “Over there.” She pointed, so I couldn’t avoid looking any longer. 

The words “Welcome to Hell” were spray painted in block letters. Underneath it, in neater script, were the symbols that wouldn’t translate. They almost hurt to look at, like they were lashing out at me.

“Hold on,” the Doctor said, face slowly shifting to concern. “What does that say?” He jogged over. Rose stopped smiling and followed. “That's weird, it won't translate.” I followed too, slowly. The less the words hurt as time passed. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well,” Rose said. “We should see English.” I blinked hard, groaned, and the pain stopped.

“Katelyn?” Rose asked. The Doctor was transfixed on the writing.

“I’m fine. Didn’t get much sleep last night. It kinda looks like Haraxian,” I deflected. I had to keep blinking and refocusing my eyes, like there was a perception filter over the symbols. “Probably runic…”

“Shame you wanted to waste your life with Archaeology,” the Doctor muttered, a reflex of an old joke. “You’d have been a brilliant Linguistic Anthropologist.”

“Well, I don't usually get much time to practice before the letters become English,” I said, similarly transfixed.

“You might as well get some practice in now, since it’s not translating,” Rose said.

“It's not working,” the Doctor muttered, in his own little world. “Which means this writing is old. Very old. Impossibly old.” 

_ Old as balls,  _ my brain provided, unhelpfully. 

“We should find out who's in charge,” the Doctor said, standing quickly and walking to the door opposite the one we’d come through. “We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge. Not a good move.”

“I thought the translation circuit worked through you,” I said.

“Well-” 

We all jumped back when the door opened to reveal three Ood. They were fairly creepy in person, but knowing what they were, what their species had gone through to be here instantly cancelled out my fear. I wondered what it was like inside their heads. Could I reach in and save them? Did I have the time?

“Right!” the Doctor said. “Hello. Sorry. Um…” He looked around. Rose and I stayed frozen. “I was just saying, ah, nice base.”

“We must feed,” the Ood said in unison, their translators lighting up.

The Doctor took a breath like he was ready to launch another line of bullshit, then what the Ood said sunk in. “You've got to what?”

“We must feed,” they repeated. 

“Yeah. I think they mean us,” Rose said. We started stepping back as the Ood advanced. Rose grabbed the Doctor’s hand and pulled him toward the door we’d come in. 

“We must feed,” the Ood kept repeating. “We must feed.”

Just when we got to the door on the other side of the room, it opened to reveal more Ood. We backed up from that door too. The Doctor reached for his sonic. Rose picked up a chair. I found a loose metal rod that I had no intention of using. But hey, I had to keep up appearances. If the Doctor and Rose found out I knew what was going on here and hadn’t tried to get them right back in the TARDIS, then  _ I’d  _ have hell to pay. 

We backed ourselves into a corner. The Ood stopped advancing.

“We must feed,” the lead Ood said. It - he?- shook and tapped its translation. “You, if you are hungry.”

The Doctor stared for a second, then dropped his arm. “Sorry?”

“We apologise,” the Ood said. “Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems.” Rose set her chair down, and I set the metal on top of it. “Would you like some refreshments?” 

“Open door 18.”

Three humans, all armed, walked in the door and stopped dead. “What the hell?” the lead humans said. “How did-?” He walked forward, and the Ood parted to let him through. He looked us over, completely bewildered. We stared back, only marginally less confused. The human raised his wrist-comm. “Captain, you're not going to believe this. We've got people.” He never looked away from our faces. “Out of nowhere. I mean, real people.” The Doctor ran his hand through his hair and Rose looked ready to say anything to get this man to shut up. “I mean three… living… people, just standing here right in front of me.”

“ _ Don't be stupid _ ,” came a voice from the wrist-comm. “ _ That's impossible. _ ”

“I suggest telling them that,” the man said.

“But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then,” Rose reasoned. “It can't be that impossible.” The man started to look less amazed and more suspicious. The two humans behind him exchanged a worried look.

“You're telling me you don't know where you are?” he asked.

“No idea. More fun that way,” the Doctor said, grinning maniacally.

“I keep telling them it’s a bad idea,” I added.

“ _ Stand by everyone _ ,” a woman’s voice said in the overhead speakers. “ _ Buckle down. We have incoming. _ ” The man immediately ran for the door we’d tried to go through earlier. “ _ And it's a big one. Quake .5 on its way. _ ” He threw the door open.

“Through here, now.” We didn’t move fast enough for him. “Quickly, come on! Move!” The Doctor shoved Rose in front of him. The other humans came up behind me.

Making our way through the hallways to the control room was slow going. Much slower going than my sanity was comfortable with. The floor kept shaking underneath us, and more than once a pipe broke and sprayed steam at us. The alarms were not helping my headache or my dread.

I’d never wanted to run so much in my life.

The alarms quieted a bit when we stepped down into the control room, probably because people needed to be heard in there. For a few seconds, the other people in the control room just stared. The Doctor, Rose, and I stared back, offering unsure smiles.

“Oh, my God,” the man who I remembered being the captain said. “You meant it.”

“People!” said the girl who dies. “Look at that, real people!”

“That's us,” the Doctor cheered. “Hooray!”

“Real and in the flesh,” I agreed.

“My name's Rose,” she said, the only one of us to be good at remembering this was weird for other people. “Rose Tyler. She’s Katelyn Laurin.” She gestured to me. “And-and this is the Doctor.” We smiled awkward smiles again.

“Come on,” a new guy said, walking in front of us. “The oxygen must be offline. We're hallucinating. They can’t be real!” I pinched his hand. “They're real!”

“Come on!” the captain barked. Everyone snapped to attention. “We're in the middle of an alert! Danny, strap up.” The man I pinched walked back over to his work space. “The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds!” He never took his eyes off the countdown. “Sorry you three, whoever you are. Just hold on, tight.”

“Hold on to what?” Rose said, looking around for an obvious place.

“Anything,” the captain sighed. “I don't care. Just hold on.” The Doctor and Rose moved to grab the same bar, fixed to the ground. I grabbed the one across from them. “Ood, are we fixed?” 

“Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated,” it said by way of answer.

“What's this planet called, anyway?’ the Doctor asked, looking around for whoever would be willing to answer him.

“Now, don't be stupid,” the woman who went down ito the pit with the Doctor said. “It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?” The Doctor made a face that said ‘well, why wouldn’t it?’ The woman's smile disappeared. “You really don't know, do you?”

“And impact!” the captain shouted.

The room shook around for a few seconds. It wasn’t too bad. A lot like a particularly rough TARDIS landing, if I was being honest.

The Doctor let go of his bar and stood up. “Oh, well, that wasn't so ba-”. 

The room started shaking again, much more violently and for much longer. The Doctor was thrown back, but Rose and I managed to get a good enough grip on his shoulders to keep him from banging his head too hard. Spark flew. A couple of the computers caught on fire.

Then it stopped, as suddenly as it started. I tried to reach for the TARDIS, but she was so far away. She wasn’t gone, seeing as how I wasn’t in crippling pain, but she wasn’t within reach either.

We were stuck.

“Okay, that's it,” the captain said. “Everyone all right?” The guard ran over and extinguished the fire on one of the desks. “Speak to me. Ida. 

“Yeah, yeah!” said the pit woman.

“Danny?”

“Fine,” he said.

“Toby?”

“Yeah, fine,” he said, looking at us. Oh poor Toby. Was it already too late to save him?

“Scooti?”

“No damage,” the woman who dies reported.

“Jefferson?” 

“Check!” the guard shouted.

“We're fine, thanks, fine,” the Doctor complained as Rose and I tried to get him upright. “Yeah, don't worry about us.”

“You didn’t give him any time to,” I said.

“The surface caved in,” the captain read off his monitor, oblivious to us. “I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely.” He sighed. “Toby, go and check the rocket link.” Toby looked incensed.

“That's not my department,” he said.

“Just do as I say, yeah?” the captain said. Toby sighed and went, pushing between me and the Doctor and Rose. Part of me wanted to go with him, but what if it was already too late for him? Where did that leave me? The beast couldn’t get in my head, not when I already knew how to defeat him. I mean, I’d let Cassandra in, but she wasn’t an ancient and unknowable evil now was she?

“Oxygen holding,” Ida read out. “Internal gravity 56.6. We should be okay.” Rose stared at the ceiling, face growing increasingly concerned when the ‘storm’ didn’t get quieter. 

“Never mind the earthquake,” she said. “That's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that? A hurricane?”

“You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane,” Scooti said. “There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum.” Rose frowned.

“Then what's shaking the roof?” she asked. Ida stood up. 

“You're not joking. You really don't know,” she whispered. “Well, introductions. FYI, as they said in the olden days.” She put her hand on her chest. “I'm Ida Scott, science officer.” She pointed to the captain. “Zachary Cross-Flane, acting Captain, sir.” She pointed to the guard. “You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security.” The guy who I pinched. “Danny Bartock, Ethics committee.”

“Not as boring as it sounds,” Danny defended instantly. We all smiled.

“And that man who just left,” Ida continued. “That was Toby Zed, Archaeology.” 

“It’s your people,” Rose whispered.

“I hate you,” I sighed.

“This is Scooti Manista,” Ida said, putting her hands on Scooti’s shoulders. “Trainee maintenance. And this?” Ida walked over to the wall and flipped a switch. “This is home. 

“Brace yourselves,” Zach said, sounding tired. “The sight of it sends some people mad.”

The overhead shutters pulled back slowly. The Doctor, Rose, and I walked closer to the middle of the room. Above us (relatively) was the black hole. It was beyond terrifying. I couldn’t look away. It was like… polished citrine on fire. It was like the eye of some great eldritch monster, staring at us, watching and watching and watching, never blinking. 

“That's a black hole,” Rose said, after several moments of stunned silence. She looked to the Doctor, but he was still fully focused on the black hole.

“Eat your heart out, Lovecraft,” I whispered, staring back.

“But that's impossible,” the Doctor breathed.

“I did warn you,” Zach said.

“We're standing under a black hole,” the Doctor said, only slightly louder.

“In orbit,” Ida confirmed.

“But we can't be.”

“Are we inside the event horizon?” I asked. I had vague memories of my college Physics professor saying it was possible to orbit anything from a certain distance, but I did not remember nearly enough from that class.

“We're orbiting  _ on  _ the event horizon,” Ida said. “Just far enough away.”

The Doctor finally tore his eyes away from the black hole. “But we can't be,” he insisted.

“This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in,” Ida explained sounding a little annoyed that she couldn’t understand it herself. “Discuss.”

“And that's bad, yeah?” Rose asked quietly. 

“Bad doesn't cover it,” the Doctor said, going back to staring at the black hole. “A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in until the matter's so dense and tight it starts to pull everything else in too.” The Doctor looked away from the black hole to Rose. I still couldn’t look away. “Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity… time. Everything just gets pulled inside and crushed.”

“So, they can't be in orbit,” Rose summed up. “We should be pulled right in.”

“We should be dead,” the Doctor agreed.

“And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics,” Ida said. “Welcome on board.”

I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the black hole. The control room had been fully stabilized and everyone was milling around as if today were completely normal.

“But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?” Rose said, pointing to all the debris around the black hole.

“Stars breaking up. Gas clouds.” Ida sighed. “We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing.”

“So, a bit worse than a storm, then,” Rose said, clearly in an effort to lighten the mood a little.

“Just a bit,” Ida agreed.

“Just a bit, yeah,” Rose repeated.

The room shook again, an aftershock. Everyone grabbed something to stay upright (the Doctor’s thing being Rose), except me. I fell right on my ass. The Doctor helped me back to my feet.

“You alright?” Rose asked. “You seem a bit-” She gestured to her head. “Out of it.”

“Well, no sleep and a black hole,” I dismissed.

“Could you pull up the information on the black hole?” the Doctor asked. Ida closed the roof and we all gathered around the central computer.

“Close door 1.”

“The rocket link's fine,” Toby grumbled, apparently still mad they’d made him check. 

Zach pulled up a hologram. The Doctor slide on his glasses, and Rose and I leaned closer. “That's the black hole, officially designated K 3 7 Gen 5,” Zach explained. 

“In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Krop Tor,” Ida explained. “The bitter pill.” Rose and I smiled. “And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon. It was tricked into devouring the planet, only to spit it out, because it was poison.”

“The bitter pill,” Rose said to me. “I like that.”

“Evocative imagery,” I agreed. “I’d love to meet the people who wrote that.”

“We are so far out,” the Doctor said, not indulging Rose and I’s banter. “Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you even get here?”

“We flew in,” Zach said simply. He hit a button and our view changed to a holo-map of the planet and a red tunnel. “You see, this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how. We've no idea. But it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel. A distinct… gravity funnel-” Zach was talking like he didn’t believe the words he was saying. “-reaching out into clear space. That was our way in.”

“You flew down that thing?” Rose said, smiling. “Like a rollercoaster.”

“By rights, the ship should have been torn apart,” Zach said. “We lost the Captain, which is what put me in charge.”

“You're doing a good job,” Ida assured gently.

“Yeah,” Zach scoffed. I frowned. “Well, needs must.”

“I happen to agree with Ida, if that means anything,” I said. Zach shrugged.

“But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out,” Danny said from across the room.

“We had fun speculating about that,” Scooti teased.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. That's the word.” He hit Scooti with the roll of paper he was holding. “Fun.”

“But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power,” the Doctor said, still staring at the diagrams. “I mean not just big, but off the scale! Can I?” He gestured to a calculator Ida had in front of her.

“Sure,” she said, tossing it to him. “Help yourself.”

I turned to Rose. “Ok, those are scary big numbers if the Doctor needs a calculator.” Rose nodded.

“Better leave him to it,” she agreed.

“‘I just calculated Pi to the 18 hundreth decimal point, and you want to go shopping?’” I teased in a poor imitation of the Doctor’s voice. Rose frowned.

“Your Doctor impression could use some work.”

An Ood came over and gave Rose a plastic cup. “Your refreshment,” it said pleasantly.

“Oh, yeah,” Rose said as she took the cup. “Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name?”

“We have no titles,” the Ood said. “We are as one.” I scowled. With how fucked up those translators were, I had to wonder if it had given a real name, and the translator had just changed it to that. Our chance to free the Ood couldn’t come fast enough.

Well, considering everything that had to come  _ before  _ we did that…

“Um, what are they called?” Rose asked Danny. He frowned.

“Oh, come on. Where have you been living?” he said. “Everyone's got one.”

“Well, not us-” We smiled. “-so, what are they?” 

“They're the Ood,” Danny explained simply.

“The Ood?” Rose asked.

“The Ood,” Danny confirmed, nodding.

“Well that's... ood,” Rose joked, looking at me. I rolled my eyes fondly.

“Five outta ten, seven on a bad day,” I said.

“Very ood,” Danny said, giving me a look that told him he agreed with my assessment of Rose’s joke. “But handy. They work the mine shafts. All the… drilling and stuff.” He shrugged. “Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race.”

Rose did  _ not  _ look happy, quite suddenly. “You've got slaves?” she demanded.

“Some ethics committee you are,” I snapped.

“Don't start,” Scooti sighed, passing by. “They’re like one of that lot. Friends of the Ood,” she mocked. I felt a _ little  _ bit less bad that I wasn’t sure I could save her.

“Well maybe we are, yeah,” Rose said. “Since when do humans need slaves?”

“But the Ood offer themselves,” Danny insisted. I clenched a hand at my side to avoid spilling secrets. “If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die.” An Ood walked over as if we’d summoned it. Rose turned to it.

“Seriously, you like being ordered about?”

“It is all we crave,” the Ood reported. I purposefully relaxed my hand just so I could clench it again.

“Why's that, then?” Rose asked.

“We have nothing else in life,” the Ood said.

“Yeah, well, I used to think like that,” Rose said quietly. “A long time ago.”

“There we go,” the Doctor announced. Rose and I went over to him. “Do you see? To generate that gravity field, and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds.”

Rose blinked. “That's a lot of sixes,” she said.

“A disturbing number of sixes,” I agreed.

“And it's impossible,” the Doctor said.

“It took us two years to work that out,” Zach said, looking both impressed really,  _ really  _ confused. 

The Doctor sniffed. “I'm very good,” he said simply.

“But that's why we're here,” Ida explained, sounding more excited by the second. “This power source is ten miles below through solid rock. Point Zero. We're drilling down to try and find it.”

“It's giving off readings of over 90 stats on the Blazon scale,” Zach explained. The Doctor’s expression didn’t shift. I shot Rose a look, but she clearly also had no idea how impressed that should have made us.

“It could revolutionize modern science,” Ida said.

“We could use it to fuel the Empire,” Jefferson said. 

“Or start a war,” the Doctor said, testing. Jefferson nodded. Test failed.

“It's buried beneath us,” Toby said. “In the darkness, waiting.”

“What's your job, chief dramatist?” Rose teased. The Doctor smiled fondly at her, his first smile since we’d gotten here.

“Archaeologist, same thing,” the Doctor teased. I buried my face in my hands.

“Toby, I’d like to submit a formal apology on behalf of my friends.” I looked up at him. He was studying me with eyes that didn’t feel quite human. I suppressed a shiver. “They tease me about it all the time, and I didn’t even finish my degree.”

“Well, whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomena,” Toby insisted, pulling us back on track. “And this, er, planet once supported life eons ago, before the human race had even learned to walk.”

“Well, it did take us a while,” I mumbled to myself.

“We saw that lettering written on the wall,” the Doctor said. “Did you do that?” Toby nodded.

“I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it.”

“No, neither can I,” the Doctor said. “And that's saying something.”

“There was some form of civilisation,” Toby said. “They buried something. Now it's reaching out, calling us in.”

_ How could you be sure that’s a good thing?  _ I wanted to ask. But I knew the answer. It didn’t matter. I would have come too, in another lifetime.

“And you came,” the Doctor said with pride. Rose smiled at me behind his back. Oh, we’d heard his ‘aren’t humans brilliant’ speech enough times to know when it was coming.

“Well, how could we not?” Ida said.

“So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here?” the Doctor asked, still smiling that ‘humans are brilliant’ smile. “Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant. Excuse me, uh, Zach, wasn't it?” The Doctor stood. 

Zach straighten up. “That's me.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic about it.

“Just stand there,” the Doctor said. “Because I'm gonna… hug you. Is that all right?”

“I suppose so.” 

“Here we go,” the Doctor said, opening his arms. “Come on, then.”

“He could not have made that any weirder,” I whispered to Rose. She laughed quietly. 

“Oh, human beings,” the Doctor said, still hugging Zach. “You are amazing! Ha!” He let go and walked back over to Rose and I. She was smiling in that way you do when someone you love is being themselves. “Thank you.”

“Not at all,” Zach dismissed. 

“But apart from that, you're completely mad,” the Doctor said. “You should pack your bags, get back in that ship and fly for your lives.”

“You can talk,” Ida sassed. “And how the hell did you get here?”

“Oh, I've got this um-” The Doctor looked and Rose and I. I shrugged. “This ship. It's hard to explain,” he decided. “It just sort of appears.”

“We can show you,” Rose said. My heart sank into my shoes. “We parked down the corridor from er. Oh, what's it called? Habitation area-”

“Three,” the Doctor said.

“Three,” Rose agreed.

“Three,” I whispered, already tearing up.  _ She’s safe. He finds her. We escape. _

“Do you mean storage six?” Zach said, like the words were sour in his mouth.

“Ah, It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah,” the Doctor said, not quite catching on yet. Zach exchanged a nervous look with his crew, who all looked a bit sad for us. “Storage six. But you sa- You said storage five to eight.”

The Doctor turned and bolted out the door, barely waiting for Rose and I to catch up. I had to go with them, otherwise they’d know I knew, and they’d ask why I hadn’t stopped it. And I wasn’t entirely sure I had a good explanation.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Rose shouted as we ran, for once in our adventures being the last to observe something. We kept running, tearing the doors open as fast as we could, as if someone that would save her.

_ She’s safe. He finds her. We escape. _

“Door 16 out of commission,” the computer reported.

“It can't be,” the Doctor insisted. 

“What's wrong? What is it?” Rose demanded. The Doctor opened the porthole in the door and looked through, his face the picture of dejection. “Doctor, the TARDIS is in there. What's happened? 

“The TARDIS is gone,” he said quietly. He backed away from the door, looking lost. I felt a pulse through the telepathic field, knew he was reaching along his bond with the TARDIS to try and feel her. I also knew she was too far away. “The earthquake,” he explained. “This section collapsed.”

Rose shook her head. “But it's got to be out there somewhere.” Rose looked through the porthole in the bulkhead door.

“Look down,” he said. Rose stared for a second, then backed away in horror.

I walked between them and grabbed their hands, offering what silent comfort I could. With all the negative emotions running through me, it wasn’t much.

“My bond’s not broken,” I said quietly.  _ She’s safe. He finds her. We escape. _

“No,” the Doctor whispered, grabbing Rose’s hand and completing our little circle. That on its own was a small comfort. “Nor mine. She’s not dead. We can get her back.”

<...>

When we got back to the control room, the Doctor immediately rounded on Zach. “The ground gave way,” the Doctor explained, sounding panicked and demanding, neither of which were ever good things. “My TARDIS must've fallen down right into the heart of the planet. But you've got robot drills heading the same way.”

“We can't divert the drilling,” Zach said. Rose and I exchanged uneasy looks. The Doctor watched Zach walk away.

“But I need my ship. It's all I've got,” the Doctor argued. “Literally the only thing.”

“Doctor,  _ we've _ only got the resources to drill one central shaft down to the power source, and that's it,” Zach snapped back. “No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions.” He paused, sounding apologetic. “Your machine is lost. All I can do is offer you a lift if we ever get to leave this place, and that is the end of it.” The Doctor just stared as Zach left, eyes flicking everywhere, completely lost.

“I'll um, put you on the duty roster,” Ida said quietly. “We need someone in the laundry.” Then she left too. We were alone, except for the one Ood still walking about. Rose looked scared, properly scared in a way I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Probably not since the Game Station, since the Doctor’s regeneration. She looked down when the Doctor turned around, not letting him see her panic. 

“I've trapped you here,” he said quietly.

“No, don't worry about me,” Rose answered gently. The entire building shook with the force of a small quake. The others looked at the ceiling with worry. “Okay, we're on a planet that shouldn't exist, under a black hole, and no way out. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Start worrying about me.” Rose finished with what she’d probably meant to be a laugh, but it didn’t quite get there. 

The Doctor pulled her into a hug and glared at the ceiling over her shoulder, daring the universe to take her from him too. I looked down at my boots.

I’d thought about this a lot, whether it would be better to tell them we got out or not. So much of this relied on split second decisions. So much of this was fear response and incredible bravery. Could I take that away from them?

“Katelyn?” the Doctor asked after a while.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” I said without looking up. “I do enough worrying for this whole base.” 

I’d thought about this a lot. I’d thought about it too long. I was out of time. If they asked, I decided in that moment. I’d tell them if they asked. I’d have to. “I think I’m gonna go walk around a bit,” I said. The Doctor and Rose both nodded, still hugging, and let me go without argument.

I did just wander for a couple minutes, but then the need to help started to  _ itch _ . I’d gotten accustomed to being able to do some good. I needed to help. I needed to save someone.

I started walking with purpose, determined to find Toby’s room. Maybe if I helped him, I could block the Beast somehow. At the very least I could watch him, keep Scooti from being a victim. 

“Open door 37.” 

_ The laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me! _

I stopped with my hands on the wheel that opened door 38. I felt like I’d just been punched in the gut. It was hard to breath. Some long buried and impossible instinct told me I could never go through this door.

I turned the handle. I  _ had  _ to help.

_ That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious. _

I let my hands slide from the handle.

“The Time Lord Victorious is wrong,” I quoted. I blinked back tears and stumbled back from the door. “Oh, Toby, Scooti… I am so, so sorry.”

<...>

The Doctor had decided he’d had quite enough of sitting and went back to Habitation 3 to translate those letters. If he didn’t already know it and the translation circuit didn’t offer any help, then he would do this the old fashioned way. Rose sat with him for a while, but left when he’d said nothing for nearly five minutes. A record, that was.

“ _ Danny, check the temperature in Ood Habitation _ ,” came Zach’s voice over the intercom. “ _ It seems to be rising _ .”

“Open door 17.” The Doctor looked over. Katelyn walked in looking… wrong. He couldn’t quite place the emotions she was trying to mask, but he was sure they weren’t good. At a glance, Rose was distracted getting food, which meant it was his job to confront Katelyn.

“Katelyn,” he called across the room. She started walking over. “Any chance you could help me with this?” He nodded at the writing.

Katelyn sat down next to him and tilted her head, considering. “I said it was runic, and I stand by that. Probably less lettering and more symbols,” she said after a moment. He handed her the notepad he’d been writing in, not that he’d accomplished much. She glanced at it, reading quickly. “I mean, the…” She tapped her fingers on the notebook. “What did Ida say? The uh-”

“The scriptures of the Falltino?” the Doctor offered, frowning. It was not like Katelyn Laurin to forget mythology.

“That’s the bitch,” Katelyn said, snapping. Well, that was  _ decidedly _ like her. “If that’s the only culture recorded with a name for this planet, I’d say their alphabet would be where to start.”

“You said it looked a bit like Haraxian,” the Doctor offered.

“Yeah, I did.” Katelyn sighed. “But it also looks like  _ Hylian  _ and that’s not a real language.” She paused, looking off into the distance. “Well, I mean, it is a real alphabet, but it just uses the Japanese spelling of words and has no established grammar rules and is certainly of no use to us here, so God only knows why I just spent 10 seconds talking about it.”

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked. Katelyn went back to studying the words.

“I’m always alright.” The Doctor and Katelyn both tensed as soon as the words were out of her mouth. That was his tell, what he said when he was certainly lying.

The lights flickered, and they both turned toward the ceiling. 

“Zach?” Ida said into her wrist-comm, standing from her seat. “Have we got a problem?”

“ _ No more than usual _ ,” he said. “ _ Got the Scarlet System burning up. Might be worth a look. _ ” Ida looked back and forth between where the Doctor and Katelyn were sitting and where Rose had finished eating.

“You might want to see this,” she said, resting her hand on the roof lever. “Moment in history.” The shutters opened slowly, revealing the sight the Doctor couldn’t get out of his mind, this time with a streak of red flowing in from deep space. “There. On the edge.” Ida pointed to the streak. “That red cloud. That used to be the Scarlet System. Home to the Peluchi, a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years, disappearing forever. Their planets and suns consumed.” The red streak disappeared. “Ladies and gentlemen-” Ida sniffled. “-we have witnessed its passing.” She reached to close the shutters.

“Uh, no, could you leave it open?” the Doctor asked. Everyone turned to him, looking slightly concerned. Except for Katelyn, who just kept staring at the black hole. “Just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise.”

“How would you know?” Ida teased. The Doctor smiled. Ida stepped away from the lever. “Scooti, check the lockdown. Jefferson, sign off the airlock seals for me.” They all left. 

The Doctor walked over to Rose. Katelyn followed, never taking her eyes off the ceiling.

“I've seen films and things, yeah,” Rose said as they approached. “They say black holes are like gateways to another universe.”

“Not that one,” he sat down across from Rose. Katelyn sat on the table to his left. “It just eats.”

“It’s weirdly beautiful,” Katelyn said. That got both Rose and the Doctor to turn away from the ceiling and look at her. “I mean everywhere we’ve gone, everything we’ve seen, and we still all end up there.” She took a deep breath. “We are but stardust, drifting through.”

“Long way from home,” Rose said, sort of in agreement.

The Doctor studied both girls faces. They were blank, but deep down he could tell that they were both terrified. His brave girls, sitting under a black hole with no way home. “Go that way,” he said, pointing. “Turn right, keep going for um… about, uh, five hundred years, and you'll reach the Earth.” Katelyn smiled and finally looked away from the black hole, which was more of a relief than the Doctor was entirely sure he understood.

Rose’s phone beeped. “No signal,” she said. “That's the first time we've gone out of range. Mind you, even if I could-” Rose paused and looked around the room. “What would I tell her?” There was silence. The Doctor went back to watching the black hole. “Can you build another TARDIS?” Rose asked, then laughed a nervous laugh.

There were few times in the Doctor’s life he’d more wanted to say yes. “They were grown, not built,” he had to say. “And with my home planet gone, we're kind of stuck.”

“Well, it could be worse,” Rose said cheerfully. “This lot said they'd give us a lift.” The Doctor gave Rose a sceptical look.

“And then what?” the Doctor asked.

Rose shook her head. “I don't know. Find a planet, get a job. Live a life, same as the rest of the universe.”

“Gross,” Katelyn whispered, having gone back to watching the black hole.

The Doctor blew out a long breath. “I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something.” He scowled, and hoped the girls knew it was mostly for show. “A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house.” Rose laughed, and Katelyn chuckled, so he was pretty sure they knew. “Now that, that, that is terrifying.”

“You'd have to get a mortgage,” Rose sing-songed. 

The Doctor let his face fall close to horror. “No.”

“Oh, yes,” Rose shot back. 

“I'm dying,” he decided, while the girl laughed some more. It was brilliant sound, them laughing. “That's it. I'm dying. It is all over.”

“What about me?” Rose laughed. “I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know.” Rose looked away and the Doctor ducked his head. He could practically  _ feel  _ Katelyn holding in her laughter. “Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out.”

“Anyway.” 

“We'll see.” They paused in awkward silence before Rose turned to Katelyn. “What about you?”

“I’d get my own place, I think,” Katelyn said, leaning back on her hands on the table. “Bachelorette pad, so I don’t have to sit through awkward moments like these ever-” Her hand stopped halfway through a dismissive motion.

“What?” Rose asked.   
  


“It’s just…” Katelyn stared at one of the walls. “I’ve never lived alone before. It just occurred to me.” She shook her head. “It was my family, a roommate, you guys.”

“Neither have I,” Rose realized. “It was Mum, then Jimmy, then Mum again…” The Doctor’s hearts hurt for her.

“I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home,” he said. Would have promised the same to Katelyn’s parents, if that had been at all plausible.

“Everyone leaves home in the end,” Rose dismissed. 

“Not to end up stuck here,” the Doctor said quietly.

“Yeah, but stuck with you,” Rose said without hesitation. “That's not so bad.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor said, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.

“Yes,” Rose agreed immediately. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and for just a second, he thought maybe they’d all be ok in the end.

Then Katelyn and Rose’s phones rang simultaneously. They answered at the same time, shooting each other concerned looks. Katelyn put hers on speakerphone.

“ _ He is awake. _ ”

Oh, the universe just loved proving him wrong, didn’t it? 

<...>

“Evening.” The Doctor took the steps down two at a time, but Rose and I walked like sane people.

“Only us,” she said. 

“The mysterious trio,” Danny called as we approached. “How are you, then? Settling in?” 

“Yeah. Sorry, straight to business,” the Doctor said, not sounding even slightly apologetic. “The Ood how do they communicate? I mean, with each other.”

“Oh, just empaths,” Danny dismissed. “There's a low level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does them much good.” I scowled, although I’d never been far from scowling today. “They're basically a herd race. Like cattle.” 

“This telepathic field,” the Doctor continued. “Can it pick up messages?”

“Because I was having dinner, and one of the Ood said something, well, odd,” Rose added. 

“Hmm. An odd Ood,” Danny said, clearing not picking up on our moods or tones. 

“And we got something else on our, uh, comms,” I added. 

“Oh, be fair,” Danny dismissed again. The Doctor frowned, and I was right there with him. “We've got whole star systems burning up around us. There's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing.” We gave him a skeptical look. Danny sighed. “Look, if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid, they don't even tell us when they're ill.”

“Monitor the field. That's this thing?” the Doctor said, walking over to the computer without waiting for an answer. 

“Yeah. But like I said, it's low level telepathy,” Danny said. “They only register basic five.”

“Except that says basic ten,” I said as it continued to go up. I pulled my shields tighter, just in case. “Twenty. Basic thirty.”

“But they can't,” Danny said.

“Doctor, Katelyn, the Ood,” Rose said. We turned where she was looking. Over the railing, in the place where the Ood sat, the had all lifted their heads and were staring at us. I shivered. “What does basic thirty mean?” Rose asked.

“Well, it means that they're shouting, screaming inside their heads,” Danny explained.

“Or something's shouting at them,” the Doctor added.

“Yeah, that helps,” I muttered, even though I knew he was right.

“But where is it coming from? What is it saying?” Danny turned toward us. “What did it say to you?”

“Something about the beast in the pit,” Rose said.

“What about your communicators?” Danny said. “What did that say?”

“He is awake,” I said 

“And you will worship him,” the Ood all said.

Danny spun toward the Ood. “What the hell?”

The Doctor stood up straighter and squared his shoulder. “He is awake.”

“And you will worship him,” the Ood repeated. 

“Worship who?” the Doctor demanded. “Who's talking to you? Who is it?” The Ood did not answer. The base suddenly shook under our feet, much more violent than even the second quake. Rose and I fell right onto our asses, but the Doctor and Danny managed to stay upright.

“Emergency hull breach,” the computer reported in repeat.

“Which section?” Danny screamed into his wrist-comm. 

“ _ Everyone, evacuate eleven to thirteen _ ,” Zach answered. “ _ We've got a breach. The base is open! _ ” Zach kept talking but we were already running. It wasn’t our sections that were at risk, but far be it from Team TARDIS to run  _ away  _ from people who needed help. 

Everyone was safe, just this side of the door into section 10. Some were standing, some were on the ground. Toby, or maybe just a remnant of him, was on the door, panting and sweating. 

“Everyone all right?” the Doctor demanded. Rose went straight to Toby, who was shaking on the floor. “What happened? What was it?”

“Hull breach,” Jefferson reported. “We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters.”

“That wasn't a quake,” I said.

“What caused it?” the Doctor asked. Jefferson shrugged.

“ _ We've lost sections eleven to thirteen _ ,” Zach reported. “ _ Everyone all right? _ ”

“We've got everyone here except Scooti,” Jefferson responded. My blood ran cold.  _ You couldn’t stop it _ , the internal voice that sounded a lot like Erika’s reminded me.  _ Time told you to run away.  _ “Scooti, report. Scooti Manista? That's an order. Report.”

Nothing. Silence. Star dust.

“ _ She's all right _ ,” Zach said after a moment. Everyone breathed the sigh of relief that was stuck in my lungs. “ _ I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation three. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious. _ ” I glanced at Toby, who was staring at his hands. So there was just enough of him left to be terrified. “ _ How about that, eh? We survived. _ ”

“Habitation three,” Jefferson confirmed. He clapped me on the shoulder as he walked past. “Come on. I don't often say this, but I think we could all do with a drink.” 

While the humans walked away, the Doctor crouched in front of Toby. “What happened?”

“I-I don't,” he stuttered. “I don't know. I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air-”

“Come on,” Rose said, grabbing Toby’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “Up you get. Come and have some protein one.”

“Oh, you've gone native,” the Doctor teased.

“Oi, don't knock it. It's nice,” Rose defended. “Protein one with just a-” She clicked her tongue. “-dash of three.”

<...>

We gathered in Habitation 3, the various crew reported where they hadn’t found Scooti. I couldn’t look up, I couldn’t make myself.

“Zach?” Jeffesron said after checking in with everyone and receiving negatives all around. “We've got a problem. Scooti's still missing.”

“ _ It says Habitation three _ ,” he repeated. The Doctor looked up, and I finally made myself.

“Yeah, well, that's where I am, and I'm telling you she's not here,” Jefferson insisted. 

“I've found her,” the Doctor reported. Everyone followed our gaze up and through the open shutters, making various noises of horror and covering their mouths.

Scooti’s body drifted slowly, caught between the artificial gravity of this impossible planet and the unyielding pull of the black hole. She was just in her clothes, frozen and blue. 

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said to no one in particular.

“I'm so sorry,” I whispered up to Scooti.

“Captain. Report Officer Scootori Manista PKD, deceased,” Jefferson reported. “43 K 2.1.”

“She was twenty,” Ida whispered, closing the shutters. “Twenty years old.”

“That’s…” I choked on the words. That was how old Rose and I were. God, but we were children, weren’t we? 

“‘For how should man die better than facing fearful odds?’” Jefferson quoted. “‘For the ashes of his father and the temples of his Gods’.”

The drill got louder for a second before it fell silent.

“It's stopped,” Ida whispered. 

“What was that?” Rose asked, walking to stand between the Doctor and I.

“The drill,” we said.

“We've stopped drilling,” Ida confirmed. “We've made it. Point Zero.”

<...>

The drill room was utter chaos. Zach ordered the Ood to containment. Ida checked the capsule and reported it good to go. 

The Doctor had disappeared, and only when he reappeared did I realize why. I nudged Rose and pointed. It was too loud to hear what he was saying, so we just watched the Doctor debate and, if I’m being honest, charm his way into being allowed on the expedition. Eventually, Zach gave in with a sigh.

“Positions!” he commanded. “We're going down in two. Everyone, positions!” We let the crew finish their checks and walked over to the Doctor. 

“Oxygen, nitro balance, gravity,” he read of his wrist-pad, grinning. “It's ages since I wore one of these.”

“That’s a story you’re gonna have to tell,” I said, crossing my arms to hide how my hands were shaking.

“I want that spacesuit back in one piece, you got that?” Rose commanded. 

“Yes, sir,” the Doctor said, lifting the helmet on.

“It's funny, because people back home think that space travel's going to be all whizzing about and teleports and anti gravity, but it's not, is it?” Rose said quietly. “It's tough.”

“I'll see you later,” the Doctor said a little loudly, like the helmet made it hard to hear. He nodded at me. “Both of you.” I gave him a little two finger salute, then recrossed my arms.

“Not if I see you first,” Rose teased, laughing a little. Her smile faded for a second, but she hid it behind the kiss she left on the Doctor’s helmet. He didn’t seem to notice, grinning as he was. I rolled my eyes, but smiled for them. Little moments, the lights in the darkness.

Everyone moved to position. Zach went back to the control room. Danny left for the Ood. Ida and the Doctor boarded the capsule. Rose and I stood in front of it.

“ _ Capsule active, _ ” Zach said. “ _ Counting down in ten, nine… _ ” Jefferson closed the door and saluted. Rose waved with a nervous smile. The Doctor waved back, reassuring, but from how tightly Rose was holding my hand, I don’t think she was soothed. “. _..three, two, one. Release.”  _

The capsule started lowering. Rose watched until the window was out of our view, then we ran over to the computer that tracked the progress. Everything was ok, but every foot the capsule sank, my stomach sank with it. The Doctor needed to be down there, that wasn’t it, and Rose would be fine with or without me. But I couldn’t remember who else died, which meant I couldn’t save the,.

“ _ You've gone beyond the oxygen field,”  _ Zach said after a very tense minute. “ _ You're on your own. _ ”

Rose picked up the microphone in front of us. “Don't forget to breath,” she said, unable to hide the slight shake in her voice.

“Breathing's good,” I agreed. I could just hear the Doctor chuckle.

“ _ You two, off the comm, _ ” Zach commanded. We rolled our eyes.

“No chance,” we said.

The capsule started falling a little faster without air resistance. Rose held my hand so hard it hurt, which was fine because I needed something to ground me in reality right now. The fear was starting to make things fuzzy. 

Just before the capsule hit the bottom, it dropped in a complete free fall. The whole planet shook when it hit the ground.

“Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?” Rose shouted into the mike.

“ _ Ida, report to me _ ,” Zach said in a much calmer voice. “ _ Doctor? _ ”

“ _ It's all right. We've made it _ ,” the Doctor said through the comms after a brief pause. Relief spread through the whole crew. “ _ Getting out of the capsule now _ .”

Rose let out a shuddering sigh. I nodded in solidarity. “What's it like down there?” Rose asked. 

“ _ It's hard to tell _ ,” the Doctor said. “ _ Some sort of cave. Cavern. It's massive. _ ”

“ _ Well, this should help _ ,” Ida said. “ _ Gravity globe _ .” There was a pause. Ida’s gasp came through loud and clear. “ _ That's… That's… My God, that's beautiful _ .”

“ _ Rose… you can tell Toby… we've found his civilization, _ ” the Doctor said. “ _ Katelyn, you’d love it down here _ .”

_ I know,  _ I thought.  _ But the dying is going to happen up here. _

“Oi, Toby,” Rose said turning around and smiling. “Sounds like you've got plenty of work.” He muttered under his breath. I took a deep, quiet breath to keep from shaking. Rose was still holding my hand. She’d know.

“ _ Concentrate now, people. Keep on the mission _ ,” Zach said. 

“Oh yeah,” I muttered. “The Doctor’s all about staying on track.” Rose laughed quietly.

“ _ Ida _ ,” Zach continued. “ _ What about the power source? _ ”

“ _ We're close _ ,” she answered. “ _ Energy signature indicates north north-west. Are you getting pictures up there? _ ”

“I wish,” Rose sighed, finger off the comm button so only I heard.

“ _ There's too much interference. We're in your hands _ ,” Zach said.

“ _ Well, we've come this far _ ,” Ida said. We could hear the crunching of gravel through the comms as she started walking. “ _ There's no turning back _ .”

“ _ Oh, did you have to? _ ” the Doctor whined. “ _ No turning back? That's almost as bad as ‘nothing can possibly go wrong’, or ‘this is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever had’. _ ”

“ _ Are you finished _ ?” Ida interrupted before I could.

“ _ Yeah. Finished _ .”

“Knew I liked her for a reason,” I teased. Rose chuckled again.

“ _ Captain, sir, _ ” came Danny’s quiet voice over the comm. “ _ There's something happening with the Ood. _ ” My blood ran cold again. It was starting.

“ _ What are they doing? _ ” Zach asked. Rose and I exchanged uneasy looks. 

“ _ They're staring at me _ ,” Danny hissed. “ _ I've told them to stop, but they won't _ .”

Zach sighed. “ _ Danny, you're a big boy _ .  _ I think you can take being stared at _ .”

“ _ But the telepathic field, sir. It's at basic one hundred, _ ” Danny said. “ _ I've checked. there isn't any fault. It's definitely one hundred _ .”

“ _ But that's impossible _ ,” Zach said.

“Oh, never say impossible,” I groaned.

“What's basic one hundred mean?” Rose asked into the comm.

“ _ They should be dead _ ,” Danny explained simply. Rose’s eyes went wide.

“Basic one hundred's brain death,” Jefferson added.

“ _ But they're safe. They're not actually moving? _ ” Zach asked.

“ _ No, sir, _ ” Danny confirmed.

“ _Keep watching them_ ,” Zach ordered. “ _And you, Jefferson?_ _Keep a guard on the Ood._ ”

“Officer at arms!” Jefferson ordered to a crewman behind him. That crewman who confirmed and hoisted his gun.

“You can't fire a gun in here,” Rose argued. “What if you hit a wall?”

“We’re firing stock fifteen. It only impacts upon organics,” Jefferson explained. “Keep watch. Guard them.” He nodded at the other guard who aimed her weapon at the three Ood standing nearby. My instinct was to jump in front of them. It wasn’t their fault. It was never their fault.

“ _ Is everything alright up there? _ ” the Doctor asked. 

“Yeah,” Rose lied.

“Yep,” I agreed.

“It's fine,” Zach said.

“Great,” Danny said.

There was a pause, probably because the Doctor was trying to figure out if we really thought that’d work. “ _ We've found something, _ ” he said eventually. “ _ It looks like metal. Like some sort of seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be trapdoor. Not a good word, trapdoor. Never met a trapdoor I liked.” _

“ _ The edge is covered with those symbols _ ,” Ida said, deciding to be the adult in the room.

“ _ Do you think it opens? _ ” Zach asked.

“ _ That's what trapdoors tend to do _ ,” the Doctor said.

_ “Trapdoor doesn't do it justice, _ ” Ida breathed. “ _ It's massive, Zach. About thirty feet in diameter. _ ” 

“ _ Any way of opening it? _ ” Zach asked.

“Why do you want to?” I asked.  __

“ _ I don't know _ ,” Ida said. “ _ I can't see any sort of mechanism, and I’m very curious _ .” 

“ _ I suppose that's the writing _ ,” the Doctor said, a slight note of caution in his voice. “ _ It'll tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation. _ ”

“ _ Toby, did you get anywhere with decoding it?”  _ Zach asked.

Toby didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Just sat with head between his knees. That’s when I knew he was already gone. 

“Toby, they need to know that lettering,” Rose tried. “Does it make any sort of sense?” 

“I know what it says,” Toby muttered in a voice not quite his own. I stepped around Rose, trying subtly to keep her away from the danger.

“Then tell them,” Rose said.

“When did you work that out?” Jefferson asked.

“Toby,” I whispered as he raised his head. He was covered in those symbols, and his eyes were red. “I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.”

“These are the words of the Beast,” Toby’s body growled, standing. “And he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness.” Jefferson stepped around Rose and I. “He is the blood that will never cease.” I pulled Rose back further, ready to run. “And now he will rise.” Jefferson aimed his gun.

“Officer, stand down,” he ordered. Toby’s feral grin faded. “Stand down. Officer, as Commander of Security-” 

“He’s come out in those symbols-” Rose was saying into the mic.

“I order you to stand down-” 

“-all over his face-”

“-and be confined.”

“-They're all over him.”

“Immediately!” Jefferson finished. The Beast tilted Toby’s head. His neck cracked.

“Mister Jefferson,” he growled. “Tell me, sir. Did your wife ever forgive you?”

Jefferson’s eyes widened and he lifted an eyebrow, but made no other sign he was affected. “I don't know what you mean,” he said. 

“Let me tell you a secret,” Toby continued anyway. “She never did.”

Jefferson swallowed hard. “Officer, you stand down and be confined,” he insisted.

The Beast smiled. “Or what?”

“Or under the strictures of Condition Red, I am authorized to shoot you.” Jefferson lifted his gun.

“But how many can you kill?” Toby said. He opened his mouth and screamed. His eyes glowed red. The symbols slowly floated off his skin and to the Ood. They jerked to attention. Toby’s body collapsed.

“We are the Legion of the Beast,” the Ood droned in imperfect unison. “The Legion shall be many, and the Legion shall be few.”

“It's the Ood,” Rose said into the comm.

“Rose, I don’t think that’s working-” I tried

“Sir, we have contamination in the livestock-” Jefferson reported

“Doctor, I don't know what it is. It's like they're possessed,” Rose continued anyway.

“They won't listen to us!” Jefferson said.

“He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time,” the Ood continued. “Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan or Lucifer.” I started pulling Rose back, but she refused to let go of the comm, still trying to explain everything to a Doctor who couldn’t hear. “Or the Bringer of Despair, the Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night.”

“Sounds like a drama queen,” I said. I’d wanted my voice to be a lot steadier than it ended up being. Rose squeezed my hand.

“These are the words that shall set him free,” the Ood continued.

“Back up to the door!” Jefferson commanded. Rose dropped the comm. 

“I shall become manifest.”

“Move quickly!” We ran.

“I shall walk in might.”

“To the door! Get it open!” Jefferson shouted, gun still trained on the advancing Ood. Rose tripped. I held her upright as best I could. 

“My Legions shall swarm across the worlds.”

The whole planet started shaking again. We were forced to move slower.

“I am the sin and the temptation and the desire,” the Ood  _ kept saying.  _ “I am the pain and the loss and the-”

“Get that door open!” We turned the handle as fast as we could, but it didn’t feel fast enough.

“I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more.”

“Door sealed,” the computer said cheerfully. The handle stopped turning. I’d never felt so much panic all at once. Some of it was my own, but not all of it.

My shields were slipping. Something was trying to get in, and that something was succeeding. 

“Come on!” Rose screamed

“Door sealed,” the computer repeated.

“The Pit is open. And I am free!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP to The Idiot’s Lantern. It’s one of my favorite episodes, but in this story what happened was:
> 
> Doctor, sticking his head in the room: Katelyn! Rose and I are gonna go out.
> 
> Katelyn, upside down on a couch in the Library, rereading Good Omens: Ok, have fun on your date.
> 
> Doctor, leaving: It’s not a date!
> 
> Katelyn, shouting after him: You’re in denial!
> 
> And Katelyn wouldn’t realize it was that episode until Rose came back in the poodle skirt, and she’s like “shit”. From a writer’s perspective, I did sort of storyboard the ep, but it’s an ‘everybody lives’ situation, so it was basically just the episode with some witty one-liners.
> 
> On to business. I can’t promise these will get out every other Saturday, but I will try. I’ll also try to tell you if it’ll be late.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. The Satan Pit

“Open fire!” Jefferson ordered. He and the guard standing with him did, blasting the Ood with frankly more bullets than were needed. I couldn’t really blame then though. Fear response will do crazy things to your brain.

As soon as the Ood fell, whatever was trying to push its way into my mind - Oh, who was I kidding, it was the Beast - snapped back, as if it had been using them as a focus and now that they were gone, I was safe. 

For now.

Rose ran forward and grabbed the mic again. “Doctor?” she shouted. I unpeeled myself from door 25 and walked over to the Ood. “Doctor, can you hear me?” I closed their eyes. They deserved that small respect, at least. “Doctor, Ida, are you there?”

“Open door 25.”

The door swung open. Jefferson and the other guard prepared to shoot. Danny came rushing in, holding his hands up in surrender.

“It's me!” he shouted, turning and sealing the door behind him. “But they're coming. It's the Ood. They've gone mad.”

“How many of them?” Jefferson asked.

“All of them!” Danny cried, voice cracking. “All fifty!” Jefferson advanced on the door with a sigh. Danny tried to block it.

“Danny, out of the way,” Jefferson said. When Danny didn’t move, Jefferson grabbed his shoulder and shoved him. “Out of the way!”

“But they're armed!” Danny cried. I stepped forward to put a comforting hand on his shoulder since Rose was preoccupied desperately trying to get the comms to work again. “It's the interface device. I don't know how, but they're using it as a weapon.”

Jefferson opened the door anyway. I was hit with a wave of hate and fear so strong I stumbled back, pulling Danny with me. The leading Ood stuck its globe onto the guard-whose-name-I’d forgotten-to-ask’s forehead. She screamed and collapsed to the ground. Jefferson opened fire again. He took out about ten Ood before Danny broke away from me and slammed the door shut again. He typed in a quick code, and the computer told us the door was sealed. 

“Code 2543, then hit the red button,” Danny shouted in my general direction. “We’ve got two more doors to seal!” I took off to the other side of the room as Jefferson finally, blessedly, got the comms to work again.

_ “Jefferson, what's happening there?” _ Zach asked. 

“I've got very little ammunition, sir,” Jefferson reported. I got my door sealed, pulled my mental shields back to where they were supposed to be, and jogged back over to Rose. “How about you?”

_ “All I've got is a bolt gun. With uh, all of one bolt,” _ Zach said. Jefferson swore.  _ “I could take out a grand total of one Ood. Fat lot of good that is.” _

“Given the emergency I recommend strategy 9,” Jefferson said grimly. Rose shot me a look. ‘Evacuation?’ I mouthed. Rose nodded in a way that said ‘I hope so’. 

_ “Strategy 9. Agreed,” _ Zach sighed.  _ “Right, we need to get everyone together. Rose and Katelyn? What about Ida and the Doctor? Any word?” _

Rose shook her head. “I-I can't get a reply,” she said, very carefully hiding how scared she was. “Just nothing. I keep trying, but it's-” Static interrupted Rose, along with the tail-end of the sound the sonic screwdriver made.

_ “No, sorry,” _ the Doctor said. _ “I'm fine. Still here.” _

Rose looked like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to kiss him or hit him. Probably both, in that order. “You could've said, you stupid-”

“Doctor,” I interrupted, even though I usually very much one for letting the Doctor know how stupid he was. We needed to focus right now, and Rose’s insult would only encourage me to be more creative with my own. “Both of you?”

“ _ Yup. Me and Ida. Hello _ ,” he said as if this were just another Thursday. Good acting ‘cause this was terrifying even for us.  _ “But the seal opened up. It's gone. All we've got left is this… chasm.” _

_ “How deep is it?” _ Zach asked. 

“ _ Can't tell. It looks like it goes down forever, _ ” the Doctor said, gravel crunching like he was leaning over.

“The pit is open,” Rose quoted shakily. “That's what the voice said.”

_ “But there's nothing?” _ Zach asked.  _ “I mean, there's nothing coming out?” _

_ “No, no. No sign of ‘the Beast’.”  _ The Doctor said the name like he thought it was silly.

“Who said it had to be physical?” I said. Rose and Danny looked at me with horror.

_ “Katelyn, really?”  _ the Doctor whined.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“It said Satan,” Rose repeated.

_ “Come on, Rose,” _ the Doctor said gently.  _ “Keep it together. Katelyn’s just being a bit dramatic.” _

“As usual,” I agreed, grabbing Rose’s free hand. She stared at me for a second, then turned back to the comm mic.

“Is there no such thing?” Rose asked. The Doctor didn’t answer. She gripped my hand tighter. “Doctor.” He still didn’t say anything. Rose turned to me. “One of you, tell me there's no such thing.”

_ “Ida?” _ Zach interrupted. Rose swore quietly.  _ “I recommend that you withdraw. Immediately.” _

_ “But,” _ Ida paused. We could hear gravel crunching again, probably the Doctor pacing.  _ “We've come all this way.” _

Zach sighed.  _ “Okay. That was an order. Withdraw,” _ he said firmly.  _ “When that thing opened, the whole planet's shifted. One more inch and we fall into the black hole. So this thing stops right now.” _

_ “But it's not much better up there with the Ood,” _ Ida argued. Rose scoffed.

_ “I'm initiating strategy 9,” _ Zach said.  _ “So I need the two of you back up top immediately, no arguments.”  _ That comment was met with crackling silence.  _ “Ida. Ida!” _

“I… think she turned the comms off,” I said. Zach sighed, and there was the distinct sound of a head hitting a solid surface. Jefferson walked back over to us, looking how Zach sounded.

“Any chance the Doctor will talk sense into her?” he asked. Rose barked a laugh, mad and nervous. I scrunched my face and shook my head. “He does know they could die down there?”

“He knows they could die up here,” I countered.

“Not that that’s ever stopped him,” Rose added. I sighed my agreement. 

We waited in tense silence while Zach kept desperately trying to break through Ida’s block on the comms. I paced and wondered why they even had that setting.

Eventually, without Zach’s input, the comms buzzed back on.

_ “We're coming back,”  _ the Doctor said. Rose finally exhaled.

_ “Best news I've heard all day,” _ she said happily.

“You are getting old,” I teased. 

_ “Katelyn-” _ he started, worry in his voice. He was cut off by Jefferson cocking his gun and aiming it at Toby, who was now conscious and trembling. Rose put the mic down. 

“What're you doing?” she asked.

“He's infected,” Jefferson spit. Toby backed up and pressed his back to some crates. He looked terrified, which meant either the Beast was a great actor or a tiny bit of Toby was still in there. “He brought that thing on board. You saw it.”

“Are you going to start shooting your own people now?” Rose asked, sounding unimpressed. “Is that what you're going to do?” Jefferson ignored her. “Is it?”

“If necessary,” Jefferson said.

“Well then, you'll have to shoot me if necessary, so what's it going to be?” Rose challenged. She crouched down next to Toby. “Look at his face. Whatever it was, is gone. It passed into the Ood. You saw it happen. He's clean.” Jefferson didn’t look like he believed her. “Katelyn, back me up.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to her anymore.

Jefferson stared at Toby for a long time, then lowered his gun. Toby looked incredibly relieved, and I wished I could join him. “Any sign of trouble, I'll shoot him,” Jefferson warned. Then he walked away.

“Are you all right?” Rose asked Toby, voice quiet and gentle.

“Yeah,” Toby agreed, even though he was shaking his head. “I don't know.”

“Can you remember anything?” Rose asked.

“Just, it was so angry,” Toby breathed. “It was fury-”

“And rage,” I added. 

“And death,” Toby agreed. Again, he fixed me with that stare that felt like it was looking into my soul in a very literal way. But he only looked for a second before he went back to Rose. “It was him. It was the devil.”

Rose hugged Toby. I turned toward the capsule shaft, waiting.

<...>

_ “Okay, we're in,” _ Ida reported, sounding like she wasn’t too happy with that turn of events. _ “Bring us up.”  _ Rose walked back over. I’d been standing and refusing to look at Toby for the last minute.

Jefferson pushed a few buttons on the computer. “Ascension in three, two, one.”

The power went out.

“This is the Darkness,” the voice said. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. “This is my domain.” Jefferson lifted his gun, but he didn’t know where to point it. Rose and I immediately stood back to back. The monitor flickered on with images of the Ood from the hallway. “You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns which die in the-”

“ _ That's not the Ood,” _ Zach interrupted.  _ “Something's talking through them.” _

“Only the darkness remains,” the voice - the Beast - continued.

_ “This is Captain Zachary Cross-Flane of Sanctuary Base 6, representing the Torchwood archive,”  _ Zach said.  _ “You will identify yourself.” _

“You know my name.” The Beast sounded smug. Could probably feel the fear pouring off us all.

_ “What do you want?” _ Zach demanded, giving nothing away. God, he really was a good captain.

“You will die here,” the Beast said, even if that wasn’t really an answer. “All of you. This planet is your grave.”

“It's him,” Toby muttered with such fear I had to reassess the idea that he was already dead.

_ “If you are the Beast,” _ the Doctor started, probably the only one of us actually shielding his fear well. _ “Then answer me this. Which one, hmm? ‘Cause the universe has been busy since you've been gone. There's more religions than there are planets in the sky. The Archiphets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Klah, Church of the Tin Vagabond.” _ My brain kept the list going with about 20 more, but the Doctor kept talking before I could interrupt him.  _ “Which devil are you?” _

“All of them,” the Beast said, definitely smug but also annoyed. It kinda made me want to punch it, which was good. Any emotion except fear would be helpful right now.

_ “What, then you're the truth behind the myth?” _ the Doctor asked.

“This one knows me,” the Beast said. The Ood all tilted their heads. “As I know him. The Killer of his own Kind.” Rose and I exchanged nervous looks. It was not often a good thing when a telepathic presence could tell the Doctor’s secrets.

_ “How did you end up on this rock?”  _ the Doctor asked, scowl in his voice.

“The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the pit for all eternity,” the Beast sneered.

“Bang up job, guys,” I muttered.

“93,” Rose whispered.

_ “When was this?” _ the Doctor asked.

“Before time,” the Beast said. My whole body rejected that thought.

_ “What does that mean?” _ the Doctor scoffed.

“Before time,” the Beast repeated.

_ “What does before time mean?” _ the Doctor asked again, clearly annoyed. 

“Before light and time and space and matter,” the Beast answered. I took a deep breath. I mean, I was a fan of poetry, but this was starting to lean toward scripture. “Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created.”

_ “That's impossible,” _ the Doctor dismissed immediately.  _ “No life could have existed back then.” _

“Is that your religion?” the Beast taunted. The Ood tilted their heads again.

I hear the Doctor’s scowl deepen. _ “It's a belief.” _

“You know nothing,” the Beast snapped. “All of you, so small. The Captain, so scared of command.” Those of us in the drill room exchanged a look. It wasn’t hard to figure out that was referring to Zach. “The Soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife.” Jefferson turned around and refused to look at any of us. “The Scientist, still running from Daddy.” Ida exclaimed quietly. “The Little Boy who Lied.” Danny’s eyes went wide. Toby started shaking, like he knew what was coming. “The Virgin.

“The Nameless,” the Beast continued. My heart stopped. That was new. That was me. I took a shuddering breath and stared at the screen. Some small, strangely analytical part of me was amazed it could pull so deep a trauma out of me. “I could spend a hundred of your lifetimes spilling your secrets.

“And the lost girl, so far away from home.” Rose looked a bit like she was gonna be sick. “The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon.” She raised the mic again.

“Doctor, what does that mean?” Rose whispered. 

_ “Rose, don't listen,”  _ the Doctor warned.

“What does it mean?” Rose insisted.

“You will die and I will live,” the Beast taunted. The image of the Ood on the screen was replaced by a roaring, horned creature, a classic Devil. It was too cliche to scare me anymore than I was already scared. Everyone else jumped back.

“What the hell was that?” Danny asked, shaking.

“I had that thing inside my head,” Toby whispered.

“Doctor, what did it mean?” Rose asked.

“What do we do?” Danny asked. He turned to Jefferson who was already lifting his wrist-comm. “Jefferson?” That’s when everybody started talking over each other.

“Captain? What's the situation on strategy 9?” Jefferson said calmly.

“Zach, what do we do?”

“The planet, the orbit, the black hole,” Toby muttered. “Everything's true.”

“Captain, report.”

_ “We've lost pictures, Mister Jefferson.” _

“Doctor, how did it know all of-”

_ “Did anyone get an analy-” _

_ “Jefferson-” _

_ “Stop,” _ the Doctor tried. Everyone kept talking over each other, sentences blurring together, everyone asking the same questions and not giving anyone a chance to respond.  _ “Everyone just stop,” _ the Doctor tried again. All that did was make everyone talk louder to be heard over him.

Feedback echoed through the comms. Everyone finally shut up. I unclenched my hand from the locket, not even realizing I had grabbed it.

_ “You want voices in the dark, then listen to mine,” _ the Doctor practically shouted.  _ “That thing is playing on very basic fears. Darkness, childhood nightmares, all that stuff.” _

“But that's how the devil works,” Danny argued.

_ “Or a good psychologist,”  _ the Doctor countered.

“Pretty sure that’s a bad psychologist if they’re focusing you on your fears,” I joked. No one so much as snorted.

_ “Yeah, but how did it know about my father?” _ Ida asked. I took the mic from Rose.

“Basic telepathy?” I offered. “Doc, correct me if I’m wrong, but whatever that thing is, it’s only picking up on things you think about a lot, even if you don’t realize it.” I waved my hand around. “Whatever you have nightmares about. Whatever haunts you when you think you’re alone. Whatever traumas are always bubbling close to the surface.” In the silence that followed, I could feel even the people who weren’t in the drill room staring at me. I didn’t look away from the mic. “Doctor?”

_ “Katelyn’s probably right,” _ he said.  _ “If, again, a bit dramatic. So what makes ‘the Beast’s’ version of the truth any better than ours, hmm? Cos I'll tell you what I can see-” _

_ Nothing cause the screens are out,  _ I thought it best not to say. 

_ “-Humans,” _ the Doctor continued.  _ “Brilliant humans. Humans who travel all the way across space, flying in a tiny little rocket right into the orbit of a black hole, just for the sake of discovery. That's amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing, all of you.” _ I could feel the fear draining out the room, just that bit, and I smiled, because this,  _ this  _ was what we traveled for.  _ “The Captain, his Officer, his elders, his juniors, his friends. All with one advantage. The Beast is alone. We are not. If we can use that to fight against him-” _

The sound of metal grating against metal cut the Doctor off. Those of us in the drill room looked over just in time to see the cable unwind itself and snap, falling down the shaft. It fell quicker than gravity could really drag it, stone dust blowing up from the hole where it fell.

Rose turned back to the computer immediately and snatched up the mic I’d dropped. “Doctor, we lost the cable!” she shouted. Silence. “Doctor, are you alright? Doctor!”

_ “Comms are down,”  _ Zach reported. Rose kept shouting into the mic, despite my attempt to get it away from her.  _ “I've still got life signs,” _ Zach said after a tense few seconds.  _ “But we've lost the capsule. There's no way out. They're stuck down there.” _

“But we've got to bring them back!” Rose argued. It hurt to see her so panicked, and I wondered again if I should tell her.  _ I’d tell her if she asked. _

“They're ten miles down,” Jefferson said. “We haven't got another ten miles of cable.” Something banged at one of the doors. “Captain? Situation report.” He walked over to check the door anyway.

_ “It's the Ood,” _ Zach said.  _ “They're cutting through the door bolts. They're breaking in.” _

“Yeah, it's the same on door 25,” Jefferson confirmed. The fear was coming back. I pulled my shields tighter, only to realize it was my own.

“As the Doctor would say,” I muttered. “There are many things about this that are not good.”

“How long's it going to take?” Rose asked.

“Well,” Jefferson sighed. “It's only a basic frame. It should take ten minutes.” We heard another bolt get cut. “Eight,” Jefferson corrected.

_ “I've got a security frame,” _ Zach said.  _ “It might last a bit longer, but that doesn't help you.” _

“Right,” Rose said, squaring her shoulders, ready to take command. I mirrored her. We were experts in crisis situations, after all. “So we need to stop them-”

“Get out-” I added.

“Or both,” Rose finished.

“I'll take both, yeah?” Danny sounded like he’d already given up, and that just wouldn’t do. “But how?”

“You heard the Doctor,” Rose said. “Why do you think that thing cut him off? ‘Cause he was making sense. He was telling you to think your way out of this.”

“Come on!” I said. “Us humans, maybe not as strong as that thing-” I gestured to the door. “-but there’s more of us, and we’re smart. Pool your resources. Work in your area of expertise. Think about what we need, and take measures to get there.”

“We need some lights,” Rose agreed. “There's got to be some sort of power somewhere.”

_ “There's nothing I can do!” _ Zach argued. _ “Some Captain, stuck in here, pressing buttons.” _

“That's what the Doctor meant,” Rose insisted. “Press the right buttons.”

_ “They've gutted the generators,”  _ Zach said. He paused. _ “But the rocket's got an independent supply.” _ Rose and I grinned.  _ “If I could reroute that… Mister Jefferson? Open the bypass conduits. Override the safety.” _ Jefferson moved to do exactly that, voice full of pride when he called Zach ‘sir’.  _ “Channelling rocket feed in three, two, one. Power.” _

The lights come on. Rose and I clapped, cheering. “There we go!” she said.

“Let there be light!” Danny agreed.

“What about that strategy 9 thing?” I prompted. I couldn’t remember exactly what it was, and we needed all the information we could get.

“Not enough power. It needs a hundred percent,” Jefferson dismissed.

“All right, we need a way out. Zach, Mister Jefferson, you start working on that,” Rose directed. “Toby, what about you?”

“I'm not a soldier,” he snapped, standing and walking away. I frowned. “I can't do anything.”

“No, you're the archeologist, and I happen to have a friend who thinks that's a useful career,” Rose said. I rolled my eyes on principle. “What do you know about the pit?”

Toby looked panicked for a split second, then he shuttered it. “Well, nothing,” he lied. “We can't even translate the language.”

“Right.” Rose and I turned away.

“Hold on,” Toby said. “Maybe.”

“What is it?” Rose asked.

“Since that thing was inside my head, it's like the letters made more sense,” Toby said.

“Telepathic residue,” I said, just to let the Beast know I knew what I was doing. “Not unheard of.”

“Well, get to work. Anything you can translate, just anything,” Rose said. “Katelyn, you and the Doctor get anywhere?” I shook my head.

“Didn’t even make it past theory,” I admitted, pulling the notebook we’d been scribbling in out of my pocket. “I don’t think I’d be any help to Toby.” Rose nodded and spun toward the others.

“As for you, Danny boy.” She walked over. “You're in charge of the Ood. Any way of stopping them?”

“Well…” Danny started like he was about to go in a brilliant speech. “I-I don't know.”

“Then find out,” Rose said firmly. She was never one for giving up. “The sooner we get control of the Base, the sooner we can get the Doctor out. The Ood are telepathic, yeah?” Danny nodded. “Katelyn’s our resident expert on that.” She patted me on the back. “Shift.”

I watched Rose walk over to the capsule tunnel and look down. I took a deep breath. 

Another bolt snapped away on the door.

<...>

Jefferson stood at one computer, muttering to himself about junctions and filters. Toby sat silently to the side, scribbling and translating in the notebook I’d given him.

“There's all sorts of viruses that could stop the Ood,” Danny sighed. “Trouble is, we haven't got them on board.”

“Well, that's handy, listing all the things we haven't got,” Rose said sarcastically. “We haven't got a swimming pool either.”

“No Library,” I muttered. “No Media Room. No-” I stopped when I realized I was just listing TARDIS rooms and took a deep breath

_ She’s safe. He finds her. We escape. _

“Oh, my God. It says yes,” Danny said. The computer screen in front of him was simply flashing the word ‘AFFIRMATIVE’. “I can do it. Hypothetically, if you flip the monitor, broadcast a flare, it can disrupt the telepathy. Brainstorm!”

“What happens to the Ood?” Rose asked

“Nothing good,” I guessed.

“It'll tank them spark out,” Danny said.

“There we are, then.” Rose smacked his shoulder, grinning. “Do it!” 

Danny inhaled, then frowned. “No, but I'd have to transmit from the central monitor. We need to go to Ood Habitation.”

Another bolt snapped.

“Katelyn, can you do that brainstorm?” Rose asked.

“Touch telepath, remember?” I said, waving my fingers. “I’d need to get a hand on them, and I’m not sure I like my odds.”

“Keep that as a last resort?” Rose offered. I nodded, because that was fair. “We’ll go with Danny’s plan, then.” Rose walked away and Danny mouthed ‘touch telepathy?’ at me. I shrugged.

“Mister Jefferson, sir,” Rose said, putting a lot of emphasis on ‘sir’. “Any way out?”

“Just about,” Jefferson said. “There's a network of maintenance tunnels running underneath the base. We should be able to gain access from here.”

Rose smiled and turned to me. “Ventilation shafts!” she cheered. I smiled. They were a tried and true Team TARDIS escape route.

Jefferson sighed. “I appreciate the reference, but there's no ventilation,” he explained. Rose frowned and leaned closer to the screen. “No air, in fact, at all. They were designed for machines, not life forms.”

Another bolt snapped.

_ “But I can manipulate the oxygen field from here,”  _ Zach said. _ “Create discrete pockets of atmosphere. If I control it manually, I can follow you through the network.” _

“Right, so we go down, and you make the air follow us by hand,” Rose summed up.

_ “You wanted me pressing buttons,”  _ Zach reminded us.

“Yeah, I asked for it,” Rose agreed. “Okay, we need to get to Ood Habitation. Work out a route.”

It only took three minutes for everyone to finish, but with a bolt snapping at every minute count, it was a very stressful last three minutes

Eventually, Jefferson ran over and started pulling up a piece of the floor. I considered the grating, then started taking my shoes off. Rose and Toby ran over to help Jefferson. 

“Danny!” Rose called. I ran over, barely noticing the metal grating under my bare feet. Rose gave me a  _ bewildered  _ look, but probably realized she didn't have time to ask.

“Hold on!” Danny shouted back, still at the computer. “Just conforming.”

“Dan, we got to go now!” Jefferson commanded. Danny bounced from foot to foot until the computer spilt out an orange chip.

“Yeah!” Danny cried. “Put that in the monitor and it's a bad time to be an Ood.”

“We're coming back. Have you got that?” Rose said. I nodded, but the men just glanced at each other. “We're coming back to this room and we're getting the Doctor out.”

Another bolt snapped.

“Okay,” Jefferson said. “Danny, you go first, then you, Miss Tyler, Miss Laurin, then Toby.” Danny had already climbed in, and Rose wasn’t far behind him. “I'll go last in defensive position.”

“I’m going after Toby,” I said, giving Jefferson a determined look. “If anything happens to you, I’m the only one who can defend us.” Jefferson opened his mouth to argue.

Another bolt snapped.

“Fine,” Jefferson conceded. “Go, quick as you can!” I scrambled down into the maintenance shaft after the others. I did want to be second to last, last even would have been nice, but I still didn’t like that Toby was between Rose and I. Well, beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

_ “Just go straight ahead. Keep going till I say so,” _ Zach said through the comms as I dropped down. The tunnels were barley tall enough to kneel in. Everyone got to their hands and knees and started crawling. We heard the last bolt snap just as Jefferson closed the grating over our heads

“Not your best angle, Danny,” Rose teased, desperately trying to keep us sort of calm.

“Oi,” Danny whined. “Stop it.” 

“I don't know, it could be worse,” Toby said, sparing Rose a glance.

“Oi!” she cried.

“I can’t say I disagree with him, Rosie,” I added, cheeky.

“Channeling Jack back there, Katelyn?” Rose asked.

_ “Straight on until you find junction 7.1,” _ Zach said. _ “Keep breathing.” _

“Damn, I was planning on holding my breath,” I muttered

_ “I'm feeding you air,” _ Zach continued.  _ “I've got you.” _

It took about a minute to crawl to junction 7.1. By the time we were there, the air was a bit thin and starting to smell like sweat and human.

“We're at seven point one, sir,” Danny reported. 

_ “Okay, I've got you. I'm just aerating the next section.” _

“Getting kind of cramped, sir,” Danny panted. “Can't you hurry up?”

_ “I'm working on half power, here,”  _ Zach defended.

“Stop complaining,” Jefferson said. Rose turned to Danny.

“Mister Jefferson says stop complaining,” she reported. Danny rolled his eyes.

“I heard.”

“He heard,” Rose said to Jefferson.

“But the air's getting a bit thin,” Toby said. Everyone was panting, even Rose. I wasn’t exactly breathing great, but they did seem to be exaggerating a little.

“He's complaining now,” Rose said.

“I heard,” Jefferson said.

Rose looked down. “Katelyn, I can’t wait any longer. Why the hell did you take your shoes off?”

“Rose, you think touch telepathy can only be channeled through hands?” Rose blinked.

“Oh,” she said quietly.

“Do I want to know what just went through your head?” I asked.

_ “I'm moving the air,” _ Zach reported. _ “I've got to oxygenate the next section. Now, keep calm or it's going to feel worse.” _

So of course that’s when the Ood broke in. We couldn’t see them, could only hear the bang of them opening one of the junction doors and their knees on the metal. Everyone’s panic swirled around me, shouting for information. Closer, closer  _ closer _ -

I slammed my slipping shields back into place. There were too many things to keep track of, and I was getting tired. 

Jefferson assumed a defensive position. “Captain, what was that?”

_ “The junction in Habitation Five's been opened.” _ Zach did not sound happy.  _ “It must be the Ood. They're in the tunnels!” _

“Well, open the gate,” Danny demanded.

_ “I've got to get the air in!”  _ Zach said.

“Just open it!” Danny shouted. “Sir,” he added as an afterthought.

“Where are they? Are they close?” Rose asked, calmer than the others. 

_ “I don't know. I can't tell,” _ Zach said, which was of course  _ exactly  _ what we wanted to hear.  _ “I can't see them. The computer doesn't register Ood as proper life forms.” _

“Whose idea was that?” Rose muttered.

“Open the gate!” Danny screeched. The door behind him lifted quickly, and everyone scrambled through. Zach fed Danny instructions and we all followed. Jefferson scooted along behind us, gun pointing down the way we’d come.

“The Ood, sir,” he demanded. “Can't you trap them? Cut off the air?”

_ “Not without cutting off yours. Danny, turn right.” _ Zach kept feeding us instructions, urging us to go faster but never once letting fear take over his voice. 

“I'll maintain a defensive position,” Jefferson said. Rose stopped moving.

“You can't stop!” she protested. 

“Miss Tyler, that's my job,” he argued right back, bracing himself on the sides of the tunnel. “You've got your task, now see to it.”

“You heard what he said,” Toby shouted. He grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from Jefferson. My body moved after Toby without much input from me. “Now shift.”

We went around one more corner before Jefferson started firing. My vision blurred, and I realized I was crying. 

“Eight point two. Open eight point two,” Danny shouted as soon as we were at the door. “Zach! Open eight point two!”

_ “I've got to aerate it.” _

“Open it now!” Danny screeched.

_ “I'm trying.” _

Danny starts pounding at the gate in a blind panic. Rose grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

“Danny, stop it,” Rose said.

“Blind panic won’t help,” I agreed. “Just try to-”

“Zach, get it open!” Toby screamed. I glared at him.

Zach’s didn’t answer. The door didn’t move.

Back from where we came, the sound of gunfire cut off, followed immediately by one more gunshot, then the sound of someone crawling very quickly. We could almost hear Zach’s voice echoing, yelling at Jefferson to move faster.

Gate 8.2 opened. 

Danny shouted in what was very nearly delight and crawled through as soon as there was space for his body. Rose and Toby followed. I hesitated just a second, but the window to save Jefferson was closed. If there had ever been a window at all. How powerful was the Beast? Could it affect timelines? Was that just another fixed point?

_ “Danny, turn left and head for nine point two. That's the last one.” _

We were halfway there when Rose glanced over her shoulder. “Mister Jefferson!” I stopped, ignoring Toby yanking on my shoulder, watching in horror as the gate closed on Jefferson.

_ “Regret to inform, sir, I was a bit slow.”  _ I could just hear Jefferson’s voice echo from Danny’s comm. I screamed and punched the wall.  _ “Not so fast, these days.”  _ I felt a hand that was definitely not Toby’s on my shoulder, urging me to keep going. I nodded, turned around, and kept going.

_ “I can't open eight point one, John,” _ Zach said. _ “Not without losing air for the others.” _

We caught up with Danny, sitting against the door and not looking at each other. 

_ “And quite right too, sir.” _ Jefferson sounded proud. After all, this was a soldier’s death. “ _ I think I bought them a little time.” _

_ “There's nothing I can do, John,” _ Zach said gently.  _ “I'm sorry.” _

_ “You've done enough, sir. Made a very good captain under the circumstances,” _ Jefferson said.  _ “May I ask, if you can't add oxygen to this section, can you speed up the process of its removal?”  _ Rose grabbed my hand. I squeezed back. We understood what Jefferson was asking.

_ “I don't understand.” _ Zach’s voice cracked.  _ “What do you mean?” _

_ “Well, if I might choose the manner of my departure, sir,” _ Jefferson said. _ “Lack of air seems more natural than, well, let's say death by Ood.” _ Jefferson paused.  _ “I'd appreciate it, sir,”  _ he said with some urgency.”

_ “Godspeed, Mister Jefferson,”  _ Zach said.

_ “Thank you, sir.”  _

<...>

They fell silent. Danny closed his eyes. Toby looked up at the ceiling like he was praying. Rose held Katelyn’s hand a little tighter, breathing deep and taking a moment to calm themselves down. Rose only let go when she realized she was holding the hand Katelyn had slammed into the wall, and that that probably hurt. 

_ “Report,”  _ Zach began, voice shaky. _ “Officer John Maynard Jefferson PKD… deceased. With honours. 43 K 2.1.” _

“Zach,” Danny whispered. “We're at the final junction, 9.2. And uh, if my respects could be on record. He saved our lives.”

_ “Noted.” _ Zach paused to gather himself. _ “Opening 9.2.”  _

The door was halfway up when a hand shot through. The Ood were just on the other side. Katelyn screamed.

“Lower 9.2!” Rose screamed. Everyone scrambled away from the door. It started coming down, but the Ood had a hand under the door and was pulling it back up. “Hurry, Zach!”

“Back! Back! Back!” Danny shouted.

“UP!” Katelyn corrected, shoving a piece of grating up and hauled herself out of the hole. Rose followed immediately, reaching down as soon as she had her footing to help Danny up.

“Come on!” Rose shouted down at Toby, who seemed to be frozen. Rose turned to Katelyn. “If we both pull-”

“Help me!” Toby shouted. “Oh, my God. Help me!”

Rose and Katelyn helped Toby out of the hole. They were barely all upright again before the door behind them opened and more Ood stalked in 

“It's this way,” Danny said, running in the opposite direction from the Ood. They had to run for four more halls and as many thankfully unsealed doors. Then they were in Ood habitation. 

Danny ran right over to the computer, fumbling with the chip he’d brought.

“Get it in!” Rose shouted. Katelyn ran over and past them. Rose followed her. There was a group of Ood coming up the stairs. “Transmit!”

“I'm trying!” Danny shouted back.

The Ood advanced. Katelyn bounced from foot to foot. “Danny, get that thing transmitting!” Rose shouted again, turning as if Danny wouldn’t hear her if she wasn’t facing him.

When she turned back, Katelyn was moving. She moved so fast, Rose almost had trouble following her. Katelyn dodged around the first Ood, jumping onto the rail and sliding down. The fifth Ood didn’t have its translator out. It probably didn’t think it needed it yet. Katelyn kicked it in the chest, spun, and pressed her open hand to the back of the fourth Ood.

For a moment, it seemed time stood still. Then the Ood all spasmed and fell. Rose felt something, some kind of pulse, brush past her. Behind her, Toby stumbled, eyes wide. Katelyn started her way back up the stairs.

“Basic 0,” Danny read, astonished. Rose laughed.

“You did it!” As soon as Katelyn was on ground level, Rose pulled her into a hug. Katelyn was shaking. “We did it!”

“How the hell?” Danny asked. Katelyn pulled back and smirked.

“Touch telepath,” she repeated, waving her fingers. “Most powerful one in the universe, as far as we know.” Danny and Toby just stared, like neither of them could quite wrap their heads around the concept.

“Are you human?” Toby asked. Katelyn shot Rose a look, still smirking.

“Jury’s out.”

Rose rolled her eyes and grabbed the computer mic. “Zach, we did it,” Rose said, smiling. “The Ood are down. Now we've got to get the Doctor.”

_ “I'm on my way.” _

<...>

We ran all the way back to the drill room. I was feeling a little light headed and a lot heavy hearted. Today was one of my worse days, but at least I’d done  _ something _ . Even if that something was going to happen anyway.

I started to feel a little dizzy. I found a crate and sat down, checked to make sure my shields were still holding. Rose snagged her favorite mic up again.

“Doctor, are you there?” Silence. “Doctor, Ida, can you hear me?”

“The comms are still down,” Zach panted, walking in. “I can patch them through the central desk and boost the signal. Just give me a minute.” Zach started typing. Rose came over and reached for my hand again. I gave it to her, but didn’t move.

Zach nodded, stepping back from the computer.

“Doctor, are you there?” Rose said immediately, not hiding her fear, not from him. “Doctor, Ida, can you hear me? Are you there, Doctor?”

_ “He's gone,”  _ Ida said gently. Rose paused, stared at the wall, horrified. 

“What do you mean, he's gone?”

_ “He fell into the pit,” _ Ida said. She sounded tired, and I wondered how much oxygen she had left.  _ “I don't know how deep it is. Miles and miles and miles.” _

“But what do you mean, he fell?” Rose asked.

_ “I couldn't stop him,”  _ Ida said, like she was terrified Rose would do something.  _ “He told me to tell Katelyn what year it was. He said your name, Rose.” _

Frozen, Rose allowed Zach to take the mic out of her hand. She sat down on the crate next to me and buried her face in her hands.

“I'm sorry,” Zach said to us. I smiled my thanks. “Ida? There's no way of reaching you. No cable. No back up. You're ten miles down.” Zach stopped, shaking his head like he hated the words he had to say. “We can't get there.”

_ “You should see this place, Zach,” _ was Ida’s answer, her voice still full of wonder.  _ “It's beautiful. Well, I wanted to discover things, and here I am.”  _ She sounded like she was about to start crying, and, for the first time, I wished I’d gone down with the Doctor instead of staying here. I’d been useless up here.

“We've got to abandon the base,” Zach said. His words were firm and clear, but his tone was gentle. “I'm declaring this mission unsafe. All we can do is make sure no one ever comes here again.”

_ “But we'll never find out what it was,” _ Ida protested, voice wavering.

“Well, maybe that's best,” Zach offered.

_ “Yeah.” _

“Officer Scott-” Zach started.

_ “It's all right,” _ Ida lied.  _ “Just go. Good luck.” _

“And you,” Zach said quietly. The clicking of the comms turning off for the final time was what finally snapped Rose out of her mood. While Zach started ordering Toby and Danny around, Rose yanked me off to the side.

“Is he alive?” she asked, voice just the other side of desperate. I paused for a second, so used to lying that I almost did. Rose grabbed my arms. “Katelyn, _ is he alive?” _

“He’s fine, Rose,” I said, prying her hands from my arms. “But we have to be on that rocket.” Rose shook her head. 

“I'm not going,” she said. I shook my head.

“No, we  _ have  _ to be on that rocket,” I insisted. 

“There's space for both of you,” Zach said. The others were bustling about, getting ready to leave. Rose shook her head and stepped away from all of us.

“No, I'm going to wait for the Doctor,” she said softly. “Just like he waited for me. For us.”

“I'm sorry,” Zach said. “I’m sorry, both of you, but he's dead.”

Rose opened her mouth, closed it, glanced at me, then spoke. “You don't know him.” Her voice left no room for argument, but Zach didn’t look convinced. “Cause he's not. And even if he was, how could I leave him all on his own, all the way down there?”

“Rose-”

“You can go,” she said to me. “I'm going to stay.”

“Then I’m not sorry.” I tapped her forehead, shoved the idea of a quick nap into her head, and caught her when she fell.

“You’re coming with us then?” Zach asked. I shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t supporting Rose.

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I whispered, shifting to try and get a better grip on Rose. “What did the Doctor mean? What year is it?”

“4220,” Danny said. I smiled, just a bit. Jack had told me once when the Time Agency had been founded. 4224.

“Sentimental old man,” I mumbled. “Still trying to get us home.”

“Did that one just move?” Toby said, pointing to an Ood. It twitched again.

“It's the telepathic field,” Danny said. “It's reasserting itself.”

“Move it,” Zach commanded, taking Rose from me and throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Get to the rocket. Move!”

<...>

Zach and Danny sat in the front of the rocket. I sat in the back, in the middle with Rose on my right and Toby on my left. I didn’t like this rocket. I didn’t like what was about to happen. But I did like the I was between Rose and the Beast.

The boys were spouting off technobabble, which basically all boiled down to ‘ready to go, let’s get the fuck off this planet’.

We’d very nearly launched when Rose started waking up. Danny glanced back and groaned.

“Captain,” he said. “I think we're going to have a problem passenger.”

“Katelyn, can you knock her out again?” Zach asked.

“I don’t want her to murder me,” I said back. 

“Wait,” Rose mumbled, just coming back to herself. “We're not-” I snagged her hand, projected fear and confidence, the best I could really do without dropping my shields.

Understanding dawned in Rose’s eyes. She glanced at Toby over my shoulder.

“And lift off!” Zach shouted, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engines. “Whoo!”

Rose leaned forward and grabbed Zach’s abandoned bolt gun. 

We waited.

<...>

Now that the Doctor’s brain had fully catalogued ‘Oh, I’m alive’ and ‘That was the rocket taking off’ and ‘Please let the girls be on there’, he started looking around. Lucky these suits came with a torch.

The walls were covered in colorful, crude paintings. “The history of some big battle,” he said into his comm. “Man against Beast. I don't know if you're getting this, Ida. Hope so. Anyway, they defeated the Beast and imprisoned it.” The Doctor turned away from the paintings and saw a… vase? Urn? He turned back and saw the same thing painted on the wall.

“Oh, maybe that's the key.” If they were human made, he’d have called the urn bronze. He touched one urn and a second one lit up. He walked over to the other one. “Or the gate, or the bars.” Something breathed, and the Doctor stopped dead in his tracks.

The Beast in the pit was impossibly large. Well, not impossibly. He’d seen bigger things, but those things were not normally… organic. The Beast was chained to the walls of its… cell by it’s limbs and horns. He tried to look down, see what the creature really was, but then it raised its head and snarled. 

The Doctor took a few steps back on instinct, but it didn’t seem like the Beast could reach him in any meaningful way.

“I accept that you exist,” the Doctor said, although even those words were hard to get out. “I don't have to accept what you are, but you're physical existence, I'll give you that. I don't understand.” The Beast snarled again, leaning closer. The Doctor stepped forward again, meeting its challenge. 

“I was expected down here. I was given a safe landing and air. You need me for something. What for?” The Beast snarled and lunged only to get yanked back by its chains. It stayed silent.

“Have I got to, I don't know, beg an audience? Or is there a ritual? Some sort of incantation or summons or spell?” The Doctor started pacing. “All these things I don't believe in, are they real? Speak to me! Tell me! You won't talk.

“Or you can't talk.” The Beast paced, as best it could, but never did more than snarl. “Oh, hold on, wait a minute, just let me-” The Doctor stopped pacing. “Oh! No. Yes! No. Think it through. You spoke before. I heard your voice. An intelligent voice.”  _ Or a good psychologist.  _ “No, more than that. Brilliant. 

“But, looking at you now-” the Doctor stepped closer again. “-all I can see is Beast.” It roared. The Doctor stepped to the edge of the cell. “The animal. Just the body. You're just the body, the physical form,” he realized. “What's happened to your mind, hmm? Where's it gone? Where's that intelligence? Oh, no.” A horrible, heartsstopping thought crossed the Doctor’s mind. He looked up and knew the creature in front of him had been smart enough, evil enough, to pull it off. 

_ Please, please, please let this be one of the ones Katelyn knows. _

The Doctor turned back toward the paintings. “You're imprisoned, long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, doesn't matter,” he dismissed. “The prison is perfect. It's absolute, it's eternal. 

“Oh, yes!” He looked at a part of the painting he’d dismissed earlier as simply styling. “Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the black hole! You escape, you die.” The Doctor threw his arms in the air, nearly launching his torch into the Beast’s cell. “Brilliant!” The Doctor slouched again.

“But that's just the body. The body is trapped, that's all. The devil is an idea. In all those civilisations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind.” The Beast leaned forward, nearly smiling. “The mind of the great Beast. The mind can escape!” 

“Oh, but that's it!” the Doctor screamed. It was beautiful, the perfect trap. If anything living got in the beast would try to escape in it. But if anything living was clever and curious enough to get to this planet, it would be clever and curious enough to get down here. “You didn't give me air, your jailers did. They set this up all those years ago! They need me alive, because if you're escaping, then I've got to stop you.”

The Beast roared in rage, straining against its chains but it couldn’t reach him. It’s jailers had made sure of that.

The Doctor picked up a rock and nealy skipped over to one of the urns. “If I destroy your prison, your body is destroyed. Your mind with it.”

He raised the rock, and one more thought occurred to him. He lowered his arms and dropped the rock.

“But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me,” he said, resting his hands on the plinth one of the urns was sitting on. “If I destroy this planet, I destroy the gravity field. The rocket.” The rocket that, half a minute ago, he’d so wished the girls were on. “The rocket loses protection and falls into the black hole. I kill Katelyn. I have to sacrifice Rose.”

The Beast laughed.

“So, that's the trap,” the Doctor said. “Or the test, or the final judgment, I don't know.” The Doctor paused, looked at the ground, wondered if he could live with himself for even taking the chance. “If I kill you, I kill her.”

Quite suddenly, the Doctor realized Katelyn Laurin was right. Here he was, contemplating never seeing Rose again, dying while she lived, and he was nowhere near happy he’d held back.

Well, he’d just have to get back the Rose then, wouldn’t he?

“Except, I have a friend who saw your future. And she’d never call Rose a victim. Your  _ plan _ implies-” The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back and marched forward again. “-in this big grand scheme of Gods and Devils that she's just a victim, that they’re both just victims. 

“But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods,” the Doctor taunted.

“And out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing,  _ I believe in her.” _

The Doctor picked up the rock again and smashed an urn.

<...>

The rocket shook hard under us. 

“What happened?” Danny shouted. “What was that?”

“What's he doing? What is he doing?” Toby screamed. Rose tightened her grip on the bolt gone. I shook my head.

“We've lost the funnel!” Zach shouted. “Gravity collapse!”

Rose looked at me with panic. “What does that mean?”

“We can't escape,” Zach said. “We're headed straight for the black hole!”

The rocket jerked hard, turning around and flying toward the black hole. Rose and I stretched in our seats and looked out the window.

“It's the planet,” Rose said. “The planet's moving.”

“It's falling,” I agreed. There was a surge of rage in the rocket so powerful I had to turn back in my seat. Toby's face was covered in the symbols again, eyes red. I screamed.

“I am the rage-” 

“It's Toby!” Rose screamed, eyes searching the rocket for why she’d grabbed the bolt gun.

“-And the bile and the ferocity-”

“It's him!” Danny shouted, turning in his seat to watch us. 

“-I am the Prince and the Fall and the enemy-”

“Stay where you are. The ship's not stable!” Zach said, trying to glance back at us but needing to keep his eyes on moving us forward.

“-I am the sin and the fear and the darkness.” Toby opened his mouth and breathed fire. Danny spun in his seat and sat flat against his seat again to avoid getting burned.

“What is he?” Zach shouted. “What the hell is he?”

“I shall never die,” Toby shouted, straining against his seatbelt. “The thought of me is forever. In the bleeding hearts of men, in their vanity and obsession and lust-” Rose looked at the bolt gun in her hand, up at the front window, and at the bolt gun again. She aimed. “Nothing shall ever destroy me. Nothing!” I sat forward in my seat.

“Go to hell,” Rose said, shooting out the front window on the rocket. I leaned over and unbuckled Toby's seatbelt. He had just a second to look terrified before he was sucked out into space, still roaring.

Zach shouted something, hit some button and a metal shutter sealed the hole in the window. I took a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. A headache I hadn’t realized I had disappeared.

“We've still lost the gravity funnel,” Zach said, struggling with the controls like he could somehow turn us around. “We can't escape the black hole.”

“But we stopped him,” Rose said. We held each other’s hands. “That's what the Doctor would've done.”

“He helped,” I assured her. Despite the fact that we were about to die, Rose smiled.

“Some victory,” Zach sighed. He let go of the controls. “We're going in.”

“The planet's lost orbit,” Danny shouted. He was shaking. Possibly. It might have just been how the rocket was shaking so much my eyes couldn’t focus. “It's gone.” He turned around to Rose and me. “I'm sorry.”

Zach settled further back into his seat. “I did my best. But hey!” He shrugged. “The first human beings to fall inside a black hole. How about that? History.”

“Whoo,” I cheered weakly. Rose closed her eyes and leaned against me. I held my breath and pressed back against her.

The rocket stopped shaking. 

Rose peeled her eyes open. “What happened?”

The rocket shifted, forcing us all to lean. Zach opened and closed his mouth a few times before he managed to talk. “We're turning,” he muttered. I laughed, so relieved I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “We're turning around. We're turning away!”

The comms crackled on.

_ “Sorry about the hijack, Captain,” _ the Doctor said. I’d never been more happy to hear his voice… Well, maybe there were a couple other times I’d been as relieved. _ “This is the good ship TARDIS. Now, first thing's first. Have you got a Rose Tyler on board? I’d settle for a Katelyn Luarin, if I have to.” _

“Hey!” I shouted, barely able to pretend to be offended.

“I'm here!” Rose shouted. She was so happy, she looked like she was about to cry. “We’re here! Oh, my God. Where are you?”

_ “I'm just towing you home. Katelyn was right. The TARDIS is fine.” _ I cheered.  _ “Gravity schmavity. My people practically invented black holes. Well, in fact, they did. In a couple of minutes, we'll be nice and safe.” _ Rose and I laughed.  _ “Oh, and Captain? Can we do a swap? Say, if you give me Rose Tyler and Katelyn Laurin, I'll give you Ida Scott? How about that?” _

“She's alive!” Zach shouted.

Danny laughed. “Yes. Thank God.”

_ “Yeah! Bit of oxygen starvation, but she should be all right.”  _ The Doctor paused.  _ “I couldn't save the Ood. I only had time for one trip. They went down with the planet.”  _ We went quiet for a moment, mourning the Ood. _ “Ah! Entering clear space. End of the line. Mission Closed.” _

The Doctor materialized the TARDIS in the storage room on the rocket. Rose and I said quick goodbyes and dashed in. I leaned on the doors, revealing in the feel of the TARDIS in my head again. She was singing, full of joy.

Rose ran right up to the Doctor. He ran around the console to meet her. Rose threw her arms around the Doctor’s shoulders, and he used her momentum to lift her off the floor. He swung her back and forth, both of them making the quiet happy noises only the truly in love could. 

Eventually, the Doctor put Rose down. I stepped forward, ready to radio our goodbye to the others. But the Doctor didn’t step toward the console yet. Instead, he cupped his hands around Rose’s face and kissed her.

My jaw dropped into an insanely wide grin, and I only just stopped myself from cheering them on. Cause this was… this wasn’t Rose being possessed or the Doctor spending 24 hours turned to stone (long story). This was just them. This was just the Doctor  _ finally  _ letting go. 

The kiss didn’t last longer than a second, but both the Doctor and Rose came out of it looking fairly dazed and very, very happy. I had to suppress the urge to clap. The Doctor rested his forehead on Rose’s and giggled. Giggled! Rose laughed back.

After another second, they seemed to remember I was there, and they opened the hug to me too. I walked forward and completed our little circle.

“Sorry,” Rose giggled. I smiled.

“I am more than willing to third wheel for you guys,” I said. The Doctor turned toward the console, then turned back.

“Where did your shoes go?” he asked. I laughed.

“A plan that didn’t come to fruition,” I said.

The Doctor just stared at me. “Right… Zach?” he said, turning toward the console. He still had an arm around Rose’s waist. “We'll be off, now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something… Oh, what's the point. You'll just go blundering in.” He shook his head and smiled, first at Rose, then at me. “The human race.”

_ “But Doctor, what did you find down there?”  _ Ida asked.  _ “That creature, what was it?” _

The Doctor’s smile faded just a little bit. “I don't know,” he admitted. “Never did decipher that writing.”

“I think Toby took our notebook into the black hole,” I apologized. “Sorry.”

“Nah,” the Doctor dismissed. “That's probably good. Day I know everything? Might as well stop.”

Rose leaned her head against the Doctor’s arm. “What do you think it was, really?”

“I think-” The Doctor refused to look away from the scanner. “We beat it. That's good enough for me.”

Rose glanced at me, still leaning on the Doctor. “It said I was going to die in battle.”

The Doctor pulled Rose tighter against him, rested his head on top of hers. “Then it lied.”

“No one can predict the future,” I agreed. “Not even me.”

The Doctor nodded, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe.”

_ “I hope so,” _ she said.

“And thanks, boys!” Rose said.

“Hang on though, Doctor,” Ida said. “You never really said. You three, who are you?”

“Oh-” The Doctor reached his empty hand out to me. I took it. “The stuff of legend.”

<...>

The Doctor took them off into the vortex. Katelyn sat down on the jumpseat and curled into a ball. The Doctor exchanged a look with Rose, and had to quickly suppress how much he wanted to kiss her again. Katelyn was doing her withdrawal thing, and if they didn’t confront her now, she would bottle it.

“Katelyn-” he started.

“I-” she said at the same time. He waited. “I knew all that was going to happen. And I… I didn’t know how to tell you,” Katelyn said quietly. 

The Doctor felt a familiar surge of guilt. When he’d asked the first time, Katelyn had so easily told him she was from another universe. Up and until he’d… thrown her out (no sugar coating that, really), she’d been so open. Now, every time after, she was so… the Doctor had gotten the subtext of what she’d told Rose. Katelyn was afraid to tell Rose. Afraid he’d throw her out again.

Rose looked confused. “Katelyn, we’re not mad at you.” Katelyn muttered something so quietly even the Doctor couldn’t hear. “Katelyn?”

“That’s not my name,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Katelyn Laurin isn’t my name,” she snapped. Both the Doctor and Rose startled back a few inches, just as a reaction to her words. Katelyn curled into herself more. 

“That thing lied,” the Doctor tried. “You agreed with me. It was just trying to get in your head, make you confused.”

“No, it didn’t,” Katelyn said with her special quiet brand of conviction. “Not with our titles. I can’t explain it…” She paused, swallowed hard enough that the Doctor could hear. “I-I’ve always known Laurin wasn’t my last name. My first day here, I still knew my real last name. I don’t now. I almost told you Rose, but I couldn’t say it. It  _ burned _ .” 

Katelyn curled into an even tighter ball, shaking. Rose sat down on the jumpseat, hugged Katelyn, and leaned against her shoulder. The Doctor sat on Katelyn’s other side and reached an arm around both of them.

“You know what I think you need?” Rose teased, gently. 

“Hmm?” Katelyn hummed. She leaned on Rose, clearly too exhausted to argue. The Doctor realized Rose didn’t look much better.

“Pillow fort,” Rose whispered. Katelyn giggled, the desperate laugh of someone who just needed some comfort. 

They built a pillow fort in front of the fireplace in the Library, out of all the blankets Katelyn had hidden in there. Right before she fell asleep, Katelyn said they might as well keep calling her that, since she couldn’t remember her real name.

“Do you need to sleep tonight?” Rose asked, already cuddling into the Doctor.

“Couldn't hurt,” he said, shifting Rose so she was half laying on him.

Truthfully, the Doctor didn’t need to sleep that night, but the girls didn’t need to know that. Not when they were both so exhausted they hadn’t even changed clothes. Besides, if he actually wanted to spend the night with a hand on Katelyn’s wrist and Rose’s heart pressed over one of his own, counting their heartbeats, well, that was no one's business but his, was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, sorry this is late, ect, ect. I’m really trying to get chapter’s out twice a month, but that’s a real time crunch.
> 
> In other news, I made a twitter for updates on updates, in case something happens. It really bothered me to just leave you guys in the dark for months without anyway of communicating outside of publishing. It’s @JustTheBestAro1
> 
> Comments are wonderful. There’s no such thing as a bad one. Thank you for reading


	3. Army of Ghosts

Doomsday started just like any other day might have, once upon a time. 

In the morning, we went shopping, by which I mean the Doctor and Rose walked around holding hands and generally being a disgustingly happy couple, and I did my best to give them space. It was easier than it should have been on a tiny asteroid bazaar, mostly because there were some local children to distract by virtue of the fact that every society in the universe had invented tag. 

Just like any other day.

Rose found a little bakery stall. It had a fun little compact oven that could cook something in a few seconds. The Doctor ordered the local equivalent of banana bread (this asteroid did not have bananas, but they did have a  _ sort of  _ bananas). We all tried it. It wasn’t as good as mine. It never was.

Just like any other day.

When we got back to the TARDIS, Rose reminded us she had laundry to do and I was physically exhausted, which meant it was time to visit Jackie. It had become a fairly regular thing for us, since New Years. Our last visit was two months ago, just after the Satan Pit incident. It had been a while.

We landed in a playground on the estate. We landed there pretty often, since people thought even less of weird things being in playgrounds. Also, it was just as empty as it always was. The temperature was nice, the skies were clear (a rarity for any part of London), and it was just like any other visit to Jackie’s.

The Doctor let Rose and I out the TARDIS first, closing the door behind us and jogging a bit to catch up with Rose. Rose jumped the see-saw and reached for his hand, which he took without even looking, swinging their arms and laughing and chatting all the way to Jackie’s flat.

Just like any other day.

“Mum, it's us!” Rose called once she’d unlocked the door, walking in without waiting for an answer. “We're back!”

Jackie popped out of the kitchen, drying her hands and pretending to scowl. “Oh, I don't know why you bother with that phone.” She looked around Rose at me. “Either of you! You never use ‘em!” I squeezed by to give Jackie a brief hug, then I slipped into the living room and collapsed onto the couch.

“Come here!” Rose hugged her mom and they exchanged ‘i love you’s with all the enthusiasm they always did. Like they thought they’d never see each other again.

The Doctor tried to slip past them, like he always failed to do, and Jackie grabbed him, like she usually did. “Oh no, you don't. Come here!” The Doctor had only a second to notice I’d pulled my phone out before Jackie spun him and kissed him. Rose hid a laugh and gave my phone a thumbs up.

“Oh, you lovely big fella!” Jackie hugged the Doctor but turned her head and winked at me and Rose. I covered my mouth with my hand, so my laughter wouldn’t overpower her talking in the video I was taking. “Oh, you're all mine. 

“Just, just, just put me down!” the Doctor stuttered. He looked so uncomfortable, eyes wide, holding his hands out to the side, back stiff as a board.

“Yes, you are,” Jackie declared, letting the Doctor go. I stopped recording and smiled down at my phone, happy with that blackmail material. The Doctor wiped his mouth and walked over to me.

“Delete that,” he demanded. Laying on the couch as I was, he loomed in a way that should have been intimidating, glaring. Almost. Maybe, if I hadn’t heard him go on a 20 minute rant about the quality of street food baked goods more than once. Perhaps, if he didn’t cry literally every time we watched  _ The Lion King. _ Conceivably, if we were telling me to do something other than delete a video of his girlfriend’s mom kissing him.

I shoved my phone under me on the couch and blew a raspberry at the Doctor. He glared harder, but didn’t bother reaching for it. We’d danced this dance before, after all.

Just like any other day.

“I've got loads of washing for you,” Rose declared, shoving her bag into Jackie's arms. “And I got you this. It's from the market on this asteroid bazaar. It's made of, uh, what's it called?”

“Bazoolium,” the Doctor said, glancing at what Rose had in her hand, then going back to staring me down.

The illusion that this was any day but Doomsday shattered. My vision went blurry. All sound turned to static. I think I stopped breathing.

“I've got a surprise for you and all,” Jackie declared.

“Oh, I get her bazoolium, she doesn't even say thanks,” Rose joked. The Doctor started to laugh, but he must have seen my expression. 

“Guess who's coming to visit?” Jackie continued, completely unaware of my panic attack six feet away from her. “You're just in time. He'll be here at ten past. Who do you think it is?”

“I don't know,” Rose said.

“Katelyn?” the Doctor asked.

“Just listen,” I whispered.

“No, I hate guessing,” Rose was insisting. “Just tell me.”

Jackies sighed, but she was smiling. “It's your grandad. Grandad Prentice.” The Doctor glanced at Jackie and gave me a look like he couldn’t believe that’s what had me so worried. “He's on his way any minute. Right, cup of tea!” Jackie spun out of the room.

Rose stared after her mother, while I tried to remind my body it needed to move. “She's gone mad,” Rose muttered.

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked, walking over to Rose.

“Granddad Prentice, that's her dad.” Rose nodded to the kitchen. “But he died, like, ten years ago.” The Doctor glanced back at me. “Oh, my God. She's lost it. Mum?” I stood up and we all walked into the kitchen with Jackie. “What you just said about granddad-”

“Any second now,” Jackie promised cheerfully. 

Rose’s smile was both pained and forced. “But he passed away,” she said gently. “His heart gave out. Do you remember that?”

“Course I do.” Jackie was still smiling. She was the only one.

“Then how can he come back?” Rose reasoned. I gripped the edge of the doorway, hoping that would hide my shaking hands.

“Why don't you ask him yourself?” Jackie said. A timer went off and she glanced at her watch. “Ten past. Here he comes.” An ethereal humanoid, wavy at the edges and only mostly opaque, walked through the outside wall of the fourth story flat and walked quickly over to Jackie. Rose snapped her mouth shut, worried. The Doctor looked stuck between horror and intrigue. “Here we are, then. Dad, say hello to Rose. Ain't she grown?”

The Doctor tore out of the Tyler flat, and Rose and I followed. We were down the stairs in half the time we’d taken to go up. 

The ghosts were everywhere we could see, just milling around. There were some children tossing a basketball back and forth, completely ignoring them. I shivered.

“Doctor, look out!” Rose called. He turned and one of the ghosts walked straight through him. He shuddered, scowling, so clearly it didn’t feel great.

Jackie walked out after us, still smiling like this was truly wonderful. “They haven't got long,” she explained. “Midday shift only lasts a couple of minutes. They're about to fade.”

The Doctor kept turning in circles, trying to see everything. “What do you mean, shift? Since when did ghosts have shifts?”

“Since when did shifts have ghosts?” I added, dodging one that would have walked through me.

“What's going on?” the Doctor demanded.

Jackie clicked her tongue. “Oh, they’re not happy when I know more than them, are they?”

“But no one's running or screaming or freaking out,” the Doctor said, sounding disbelieving and still frowning. Rose was looking more and more concerned by the minute. I was still trying to remember how to breathe properly.

“Why should we?” Jackie demanded. “Here we go. Twelve minutes past.”

The ghosts faded. 

Doomsday had begun.

<...>

Proving the theory that humans would record the apocalypse is given half a chance, there was a show called “Ghostwatch” that, according to Jackie, gave updates two minutes after every shift.

_ “On today's Ghostwatch,” _ the… reporter, to use that term generously, said.  _ “Claims that some of the ghosts are starting to talk, and there seems to be a regular formation gathering around Westminster Bridge. It's almost like a military display!” _

“What the hell's going on?” the Doctor muttered, changing to channel. Never good when he decided to swear.

_ “-and tonight we're expecting very strong ghosts from London, through the North and up into Scotland-” _

The Doctor changed the channel again.

_ “So basically, Eileen,”  _ the host of the next show, the Trisha Goddard show based on the lower third - said. _ “What you're telling me is that you are in love with a ghost.”  _

_ “He's my ghost!” _ Eileen, presumably, cried. _ “And I love him. Twenty four seven.” _ The audience clapped.

The Doctor changed the channel.

_ “Well, no one needs me anymore!” _

The Doctor changed the channel.

“ _ My ghost was pale and grey, _ ” a cheerful looking woman advertised. “ _ Until I discovered Ectoshine!” _

“Ugh, capitalism,” I muttered.

The Doctor changed the channel rapid fire, new anchors reporting on the ghosts and people’s reactions in French, Indian, Japanese-

“It's all over the world,” the Doctor realized.

The Doctor changed the channel again.

_ “Listen to me, Den Watts!” _ Ah, this I recognized from the week before New Year’s. This one was Eastenders. _ “I don't care if you have come back from the grave. Get out of my pub! The only spirits I'm serving in this place are gin, whisky, and vodka. So, you heard me. Get out!” _

The Doctor turned the TV off. 

“When did it start?” he asked, turning to the Tyler’s on the couch and me curled into a ball in the armchair next to them.

“Well, first of all,” Jackie started, leaning forward in the way she did when she had a story to tell. “Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down-”

“No, I mean worldwide,” the Doctor interrupted. Despite everything, Rose smiled.

“Oh,” Jackie said, like she honestly hadn’t thought that was what he was asking. “That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning, and there they all were. Ghosts, everywhere. We all ran round screaming and that. Whole planet was panicking. No sign of you, thank you very much.” To his credit, the Doctor did not interrupt Jackie to defend himself. “Then it sort of sank in. It took us time to realise that... we're lucky.”

“What makes you think it's granddad?” Rose asked gently.

Jackie shrugged. “It just feels like him.” We frowned. “There's that smell, those old cigarettes. Can't you smell it?”

“I wish I could, mum, but I can't.”

“You've got to make an effort,” Jackie said. “You've got to want it, sweetheart.”

The Doctor clearly did not like that answer. His eyes widened. “The more you want it, the stronger it gets,” he said.

“Sort of, yeah,” Jackie agreed.

“Like a psychic link.” The Doctor paused. “Katelyn did you feel anything during the ghost shift?”

“Just cold,” I said.  _ And completely panicked. _ “Did you?”

“No, but we can test that next time.” The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. “Because of course you want your old dad to be alive, so you're wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in.”

“You're spoiling it,” Jackie said, sounding like this is exactly what she’d been expecting, like this was exactly why she hadn’t called us. 

“I'm sorry, Jackie,” the Doctor said. “But there's no smell, there's no cigarettes. Just a memory.”

“But if they're not ghosts, what are they then?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, but they're human!” Jackie protested. “You can see them. They look human.”

“Jackie, lots of species ‘look human’,” I said. “You’ve got one sitting in your living room right now.” Jackie almost looked like she’d forgotten.

Rose stopped biting her nail. “Mum’s got a point though. I mean, they're all sort of blurred, but they're definitely people-shaped.” 

“Maybe not,” the Doctor sighed. “They're pressing themselves into the surface of the world. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot.”

<...>

Rose walked up to the TARDIS with a paper in her hand, but stopped when she saw me leaning against the outside.

“I can just sense he’s about to do something so dorky it’ll kill me,” I sighed, lying my arm dramatically across my face. Rose grinned, because dorky Doctor was one of her favorites, and ran inside. I caught the door with my hand and listened.

“According to the paper, they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds,” Rose shouted. “Now don't tell me you're going to sit back and do nothing.”

“Who you going to call?” the Doctor very nearly sang.

“Ghostbusters!” Rose cheered. 

“I ain't afraid of no ghosts,” the Doctor finished. They both ran out laughing.

“Rose you weren’t supposed to encourage him!” I called, running after them, so very close to feeling happy.

“When's the next shift?” the Doctor asked, setting three sort of glass-ish cones down in a triangle on the grass.

“Quarter to,” Jackie said, checking her watch. “But don't go causing trouble. What's that lot do?”

“Triangulates their point of origin,” the Doctor said, still setting them up.

“I don't suppose it's the Gelth?” Rose offered.

“Nah,” the Doctor dismissed, connecting a few wires. “They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper.” 

“A footprint doesn’t look like a boot,” I repeated.

“You're always doing this. Reducing it to science,” Jackie argued. “Why can't it be real? Just think of it, though. All the people we've lost. Our families, coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?”

“I think it's horrific,” the Doctor said without hesitation. He ran back into the TARDIS. “Rose, Katelyn, give us a hand.”

We jogged to catch up with the Doctor, but Jackie grabbed my arm. “You’ve been quiet,” she said. “Now don’t tell me you agree with them. Don’t you want to see your family again?”

I yanked my arm free of her loose grip. I didn’t turn around. “I want to see them like how I remember them, Jackie. I don’t want some… mirage.”

I didn’t wait for her answer.

“-press that button there. If it doesn't stop-” the Doctor stopped talking only to dig the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and hand it to Rose. “-setting fifteen B. Hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop.”

“Fifteen B, eight seconds,” Rose repeated, nodding. I smiled, pointedly ignoring Jackie walking in behind me.

“If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left.” The Doctor reached to show Rose, but she leaned over first.

“Hang on a minute, I know,” she said. “Push that one.”

“Close.”

Rose grabbed a nob. “That one?”

“Mmm, now you've just killed us.” 

Rose laughed. “Eh, that one.”

“Yeah!” the Doctor shouted. He kissed Rose on the side of her head and turned toward the door. “Now, what've we got? Two minutes to go?” He sprinted through the doors calling “Katelyn, I need you out here!” over his shoulder.

Given the look on Jackie Tyler’s face, I was very glad to run out after him.

“ROSE MARION TYLER!” was all that escaped before I closed the TARDIS door as much as I could. The Doctor looked up from the cones, with an expression very much like the one of a teenager who’d just been caught sneaking out of his girlfriend’s window.

“Just be glad Jackie doesn’t know  _ your  _ full name,” I said. “Hell hath no fury like a human mother saying every syllable on your birth certificate.” 

“Speaking from experience?” the Doctor teased, although he kept glancing at the TARDIS like Jackie was gonna come out swinging. Which was a possibility.

“I lived in a tiny town in the rural Midwest,” I started. “ _ Everyone  _ knew my full name, and I did not mind telling Timothy Carbrew where he could stick it. Yeah, I heard it a lot but not usually from my mom.”

The Doctor had his “wtf are humans?” expression on, so I guess I succeeded in distracting him. The fact that the weird back-pack thing he was wearing kept beeping probably didn’t hurt my chances either. 

“What's the line doing?” the Doctor shouted toward the TARDIS, snapping back to work.

“It's alright! It's holding!” Rose shouted out, sounding like she’d paused in the middle of the sentence to update us. The Doctor powered up each of the cones and we waited. 

“30 seconds to go,” the Doctor muttered after a while. “Katelyn, when the ghost appears again, I want you to do a mental scan.”

“You do the science, I do the telepathy,” I confirmed. “What a team.”

“Here we go!” the Doctor shouted to the TARDIS.

“The scanner's working,” Rose shouted back. “It says delta one six.”

“Come on then, you beauty!” the Doctor shouted at the empty space in the cones.

“Doc, no need to make Rose jealous,” I teased. 

He sputtered for a second, but then the ghost appeared. The second it did, I was slammed with cold and shuddered violently. The Doctor stuck his 3D glasses on; I lowered my shields just a tiny bit., holding my hand out in front of me. The Doctor turned a dial; why was it so cold?

The ghost started to writhe.

“Don't like that much, do you?” the Doctor taunted. “Who are you? Where are you coming from?” It swung out at us. We stumbled backward. I fell to the ground. “Whoa! That's more like it! Not so friendly now, are you?” The ghost writhed a bit longer, until it faded. The Doctor reached down and helped me to my feet. “Katelyn?”

“It’s so cold, in the space between,” I whispered, vision fuzzy, numb. “So dark. Escape. F-follow the light. Follow the pull.” I shuddered one more time. My vision cleared, and I could finally feel the death grip I had on the Doctor’s sleeve. “Well.”

“I was thinking ‘blimey’, but ‘well’ works too,” the Doctor agreed. We picked up the cones and ran back into the TARDIS. “I said so!” the Doctor shouted, running around the console to Rose. I glanced at Jackie sitting up on the raised grating, but she just glared silently. Oh, I had never been so glad to not be Rose Tyler or the Doctor. “Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point-” the Doctor continued, despite Rose’s constant nervous glances at her mother. “-and I can track down the source. Allons-y!”

“Excuse you, French is my second language,” I shouted over the sound of the TARDIS taking off. At that point, it was so par for the course, none of us were even phased.

“Too bad, cause I like that. Allons-y.” The Doctor smiled to himself and kept piloting. “I should say allons-y more often. Allons-y. Look sharp, Rose Tyler. Allons-y. And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso! Because then I could say, ‘allons-y, Alonso’, every time.” His smile dropped, hands hovering over her hips but not touching. “You're staring at me.”

“My mum's still on board,” Rose whispered. The Doctor looked over at Jackie with slowly dawning horror, and quickly pinned his hands to his side.

“You two are lucky the world’s in danger,” Jackie warned, crossing her arms. “When this is over…” She let the threat hang. The Doctor looked fairly terrified, and Rose looked ready to jump out into the time vortex. I was just hoping they’d all think I was crying because I was holding in laughter.

<...>

The TARDIS materialised in a Torchwood loading bay, and was almost immediately surrounded by armed troops. We watched from the scanner, frowning.

“Now  _ what _ is the point of camo indoors?” I asked the air. 

“And there goes the advantage of surprise,” the Doctor sighed. “Still, cuts to the chase.” The Doctor walked from the console. “Girls, stay in here, look after Jackie.”

“Girls?” I said, snapping my gaze from the scanner to him.

“I'm not looking after my mum!” Rose protested.

“Well, you brought her,” the Doctor shot back.

“I was kidnapped!” Jackie argued. The Doctor didn’t stop, so Rose ran in front of him and blocked the door.

“Doctor, they've got guns,” Rose said quietly.

“And I haven't,” the Doctor agreed, grabbing Rose around the waist and gently guiding her away from the door. “Which makes me the better person, don't you think?” Rose gripped his hands, still refusing to let him go out. “Rose, I’ll leave the door open. I can just run back in.”

Reluctantly, Rose let him go. “Be careful.”

“Always,” the Doctor promised, apparently deciding things couldn’t get worse with Jackie and kissing Rose again before walking out. 

True to his word, the Doctor left the door propped open slightly. We crowed at the gap to try and watch. We could only hear the soldiers cock their guns, but we could see the Doctor raise his arm. The tense silence only lasted a second before being broken by the clacking of someone running in heels.

“Oh! Oh, how marvellous,” a woman, the Torchwood… CEO? said. “Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day.” She started clapping, and the soldiers lowered their guns and joined in. The Doctor’s confusion was so palpable I was half expecting question marks to appear around his head. He lowered his arms.

“Um, thanks.” He didn’t sound very sure of that. “Nice to meet you. I'm… the Doctor.”

“Oh, I should say!” the woman cheered. Everyone clapped again. The Doctor’s confusion was quickly turning into discomfort.

“You-you've heard of me, then.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well of course we have,” the woman said like this was something we should all  _ obviously  _ know already. “And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here! The Doctor and the TARDIS- I-” The group outside started clapping again, louder this time. The Doctor laughed nervously and motioned for them to stop. They didn’t, until he actually smooshed them and looked about ready to run into the TARDIS even with the threat on his life gone.

“And-and-and you are?” he asked.

“Oh, plenty of time for that,” the woman dismissed cheerfully. “But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone.” The Doctor’s expression changed instantly. “The Doctor and his companions. That's a pattern, isn't it, right? There's no point hiding anything. Not from us. So where are they?” The Doctor paused for a moment, then put on his best fake smile.

“Yes. Sorry. Good point.” He opened the door a bit and reached in. “They’re just a bit shy, that's all. But here they are.” He pulled Jackie out by her arm and I stepped out after her, pulling the door closed behind me. I could  _ feel  _ Rose’s indignation. “Katelyn Laurin.” I waved, putting on my own fake smile. “-and Rose Tyler.” Jackie smiled nervously, clearly confused by also assuming we knew what we were doing.

We did not. 

“Hmm. She's not the best I've ever had,” the Doctor said, still looking at Jackie. “Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that.” He motioned in the universal sign of “gossips”. The Torchwood woman laughed. “And just last week, she… stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty seven years. But she'll do.” 

“I'm forty,” Jackie complained instantly.

“Deluded. Bless,” the Doctor said to the woman. I nodded as if to say ‘how tragic’. “I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad-”

“Don’t listen to him. Rose is brilliant at tea,” I interrupted.

“That’s 126,” the Doctor said. I scowled at him.

“Brilliant is just a word!”

“Anyway, lead on. Allons-y,” the Doctor said. “But not too fast.” He nodded at Jackie. “Her ankle's going.”

“I'll show you where my ankle's going,” Jackie muttered.

The woman walked away and we followed, not looking back at the TARDIS. We couldn’t give Rose away. 

“It was only a matter of time until you found us,” the woman said, sounding absolutely pleased as punch. “And at last you've made it. I'd like to welcome you, Doctor.” She pushed the doors from our little hiding room open. “Welcome to Torchwood.”

The room on the other side was massive, almost like a warehouse with it’s high ceilings and exposed steel beams. There were crates scattered everywhere, like they’d just moved buildings and hadn’t had enough time to unpack yet. Although they did have enough room for a few jeeps to drive through, bringing crates and other junk from one place to another. Oh, and there was a flying saucer on stilts, taking up about a third of the room. An average Friday for us.

“That's a Jathar Sunglider,” the Doctor said, staring.

“Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands ten years ago,” the woman explained.

“Did it crash?” I asked.

“We shot it down,” the woman said as if we’d asked her the weather. “It violated our airspace. 

“Any chance you told them that?” I snapped.

“We stripped it bare,” the woman said as if I hadn’t even spoken. “The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas Day? That was us.” She smiled and walked on. The Doctor and I shared a look. Jackie even looked a little disgusted. “Now, if you'd like to come with me. 

“The Torchwood Institute has a motto,” the woman continued. “If it's alien, it's ours.” I opened my mouth, but the Doctor shook his head. “Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it down and we use it for the good of the British Empire.”

“For the good of the what?” Jackie asked.

“The British Empire,” the woman repeated.

“There isn't a British Empire,” Jackie said like she couldn’t believe this woman was so deluded.

“Not yet.” The woman’s tone was just short of a wink. It was taking a lot of effort to keep my face as neutral as the Doctor was managing to keep his. “Now, if you wouldn't mind.” The woman took a huge, bulky looking gun from a man next to her. “Do you recognise this, Doctor?”

“That's a particle gun,” he said.

“Good, isn't it?” Would this woman stop looking so  _ smug  _ about everything? “Took us eight years to get it to work.”

“It's the twenty-first century,” the Doctor said, alarmed and finally showing it. “You can't have particle guns.”

“We must defend our border against the alien,” the woman dismissed. She turned and handed the gun back to the man she’d taken it from. “Thank you… Sebastian, isn't it?”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

“Thank you, Sebastian.” She turned back to us. “I think it's very important to know everyone by name. Torchwood is a very modern organisation.” The Doctor gave me a look that clearly said he wasn’t quite sure this woman was sane. I shrugged. “People skills. That's what it's all about these days. I'm a people person.”

“Have you got anyone called Alonso?” the Doctor asked.

The woman frowned. “No, I don't think so. Is that important?”

“No, I suppose not. What was your name?” the Doctor asked.

“Yvonne,” the woman said. “Yvonne Hartman.”

The Doctor walked over to an open crate and grabbed what looked like a black plastic step-stool with a handle on top. Dread flooded my entire system. I took a deep breath as quietly as I could. 

“Ah, yes,” Yvonne cheered. “Now, we're rather fond of these. The Magnaclamp. Found in a spaceship buried at the base of Mount Snowdon. Attach this to an object and it cancels the mass.” She looked over at Jackie, still completely ignoring me. “I could use it to lift two tonnes of weight with a single hand. That's an imperial ton, by the way. Torchwood refuses to go metric.” The Doctor dropped the Magnaclamp back into the crate. 

“I could do with that to carry the shopping,” Jackie said.

“All these devices are for Torchwood's benefit.” Yvonne was still smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile. “Not the general public's.” I patted Jackie on the arm and walked after the Doctor.

“So, what about these ghosts?” he asked.

“Ah yes, the ghosts.” Yvonne didn’t sound happy talking about them. “They're, uh, what you might call a side effect.”

“Of what?” the Doctor prompted.

“All in good time, Doctor,” Yvonne said. “There is an itinerary, trust me.”

“Oi! Where are you taking that?” Jackie cried. The Doctor and I turned and watched the TARDIS being driven in the back of a jeep. 

“If it's alien, it's ours,” Yvonne said.

“You'll never get inside it,” the Doctor said.

“Wouldn’t even have been able to move her if she hadn't let you,” I added.

“Hmm! Et cetera.” Yvonne turned and led us away.

The TARDIS doors cracked a tiny bit and Rose peeked out. The Doctor gave her a little nod. I tried to smile, but... would that be the last time I saw her?

We followed Yvonne through another set of double doors, out of the warehouse and into some equally industrial looking hallways. It made me wonder what Torchwood’s front company was, if it even bothered with one. I almost asked, but Yvonne had yet to acknowledge my existence outside of the use of “they” and “we shot it down”, so I just walked along and stayed silent.

“All those times I've been on Earth, I've never heard of you,” the Doctor said.

“But of course not.” God, did she have to sound so smug about everything? “You're the enemy. You're actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown. You and Miss Laurin.”

“Honestly, you insult _ one  _ queen,” I muttered to myself.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.” He looked at me. “You could’ve just stayed quiet.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk Mr. kept-dropping-his-accent.”

“Her Majesty, Queen Victoria created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne countined.

“Oh, brilliant,” I said. “All the technology of the 21st century and the attitude of the 19th.” 

“Katelyn, you’re not helping - wait.” The Doctor looked at Yvonne. “Hold on. If we’re the enemy, does that mean that we’re your prisoners?”

“Oh yes,” Yvonne said, smiling as if she’d just told us something wonderful. I wasn’t a violent woman but  _ God _ , did I really want to hit her. “We'll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us.” Yvonne stopped at a large metal door and swiped a keycard to unlock it. “Starting with this.”

The doors opened and freezing cold air poured out. I shuddered violently. Ok, so Void stuff = cold, apparently. Except no one else was shivering. I looked at the Void ship, stepping even with the Doctor. I had to blink hard to look at it for more than a few seconds. The Doctor wasn’t having as much trouble, but that didn’t mean he looked any happier than I felt.

“Now, what do you make of that?” Yvonne asked. 

A man walked up to the other side of the Doctor. Grateful for an excuse to look away from the Void Ship, I focused on him instead. “You must be the Doctor,” he said. “Rajesh Singh. It's an honour, sir.” He stuck out his hand, but the Doctor just mumbled ‘yeah’ and kept staring. 

“What is that thing?” Jackie asked as soon as it was apparent the Doctor wasn’t saying anything.

“We got no idea,” Yvonne admitted.

“What's wrong with it?” Jackie asked.

“What makes you think there's something wrong with it?” Rajesh asked.

Jackie frowned, eyes flicking back and forth from the Void ship to the other people. “I don't know. It just feels weird.”

“Cold,” I added. “Weird, cold, and wrong.”

“The sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. The Doctor ran forward, jumping onto the stage under the sphere and staring. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it's forbidden.”

“And yet you still want to poke and prod,” I said, not really in disbelief because this was just how humans worked. “If it’s screaming ‘cursed’, just leave it be.”

Yvonne scowled at me, and Rajesh gave me a look like he couldn’t believe what I was suggesting. 

“But it’s such a mystery!” he said. “We tried analysing it using every device imaginable.” The Doctor put on an old pair of 3D glasses, staring at the Void Ship. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn't exist,” Rajesh continued. “It weighs nothing, it doesn't age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But I can see it,” Jackie protested, staring.

“Fascinating, isn't it?”

“That’s one word for it,” I mumbled.

“It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is…” Rajesh paused. “Absent.”

The Doctor turned and surveyed the room briefly, then did a double take back to me, but I couldn’t see his eyes behind the red and blue lenses.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne prompted. 

“This is a Void Ship,” he said, voice tinted with fear and awe.

Yvonne gestured Rajesh over to her. “And what is that?”

“Well, it's impossible for starters,” the Doctor said, taking off his glasses and tucking them in his pocket. I rolled my eyes, and luckily the Doctor turned in time to see it. “I always thought it was just a theory, but…” The Doctor gestured widely for a moment, but I caught a calculated movement buried in it. The ASL sign for listen. “It's a vessel-”  _ My sign name. No _ . “-designed to exist outside time and space-”  _ Not living _ . “-travelling through the Void.”  _ My sign name again. Covered. Thing. _

I really needed to teach the Doctor more ASL.

“And what's the Void?” Rajesh asked. 

No one was looking at me, so I could be a bit smoother in my signing.  _ How am I alive? _

“The space between dimensions,” the Doctor explained to Rajesh.  _ Impossible,  _ he signed to me _.  _ Then he sat down on the stairs, lacing his fingers together as if to stop all the gesturing. “There's all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that. Nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time. Without end.

“My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling.” The Doctor looked between Yvonne and Rajesh to look straight at me. “But some people call it Hell.”

“Been there, done that,” I said, trying for reassuring but probably missing by a mile.

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh argued. “What for? Why go there?”

“To explore? To escape?” the Doctor suggested. 

He glanced at me.  _ Accident _ , I signed.

“You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by,” the Doctor continues, looking back up. “The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn't even touch the sides. You'd exist outside the whole of creation.”

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, looking halfway between delighted and malicious. “There is something inside it.”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said flatly. Yvonne finally, finally looked a  _ little  _ worried.

“So how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked. 

“We don't!” The Doctor launched himself off the stairs and stood next to me. “We send that thing back into Hell-

“-Where it belongs,” I added.

“How did it get here in the first place?”

“Well, that's how it all started,” Yvonne said, nodding toward the sphere. “The sphere came through into this world, and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show us.” The Doctor turned and stormed out, and I followed, steps only out of sync because his legs were longer.

<...>

Katelyn only shivered more violently with every floor they traveled up. On any other day, the Doctor would have sent her back to the TARDIS by now, but today the TARDIS was in enemy hands. Which meant Rose was technically in enemy hands-

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne said, pointing the Doctor at the blank wall at the far end of the astonishing white room they were in now. Right. He had to focus. “A hole in the world.” The Doctor grabbed Katelyn's hand when she reached to touch the wall. “Not active at the moment, but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breech opens up.” 

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, backing away from the wall and pulling Katelyn with him. 

“We were getting warning signs for years.” Yvonne backed up with them. “A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower.” The Doctor pulled his 3D glasses from his pocket and handed them to Katelyn. “The breach was six hundred foot above sea level. It was the only way to reach it.”

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” the Doctor said, pulling out a second pair of glasses. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne said, stepping away. 

The Doctor put the glasses on and looked at Katelyn, who had also put the glasses on and was staring at her hand held in front of her. She was almost completely hidden under the Void Stuff clinging to her body, her outline blurry from her violent shivering and blending into the particle covered wall in front of her. 

“Are they dangerous?” Katelyn asked, voice small.

“What?”

“The Void particles.” She shook her hand to move them around. “Is it like radiation? Am I gonna be ok?”

The Doctor paused. Katelyn Laurin was  _ human,  _ and a young human at that. She knew so much, was usually so confident, he forgot sometimes. Especially since Erika, since knowing what she wanted was right there, but time dictated she couldn’t have it. And there was that thought again, popping up when he didn’t have time for it, as usual.

“Hold on a minute,” Jackie said. The Doctor and Katelyn spun toward her. “We're in Canary Wharf.” Katelyn froze next to him, radiating the same full body panic she had back at Jackie’s flat. The Doctor couldn’t quite figure out why those words felt like cold hands around his hearts. He had too much else on his mind at the moment. “Must be. This building, it's Canary Wharf.”

Yvonne shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that is the public name for it. But to those in the know, it's Torchwood.” The Doctor glanced at Katelyn, who looked like she was trying to shrink in on herself, and decided to deal with Yvonne first.

“So, you find the breach-” The Doctor walked over to where Yvonne and Jackie were talking, Katelyn following on his heels despite looking like she’d rather not. “-probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam.” He leaned against the doorway in a way that usually got a snarky comment out of Katelyn. She stayed silent. “It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let's make it bigger!”

“Ever heard the phrase “don’t poke the bear”?” Katelyn added. She cleared her throat, and the next words came out much stronger. “Don’t tempt fate? Don’t step in a faerie circle?”

“It's a massive source of energy,” Yvonne argued as if the Doctor hadn’t already considered that point. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent.”

“God, your neighbors are so much smarter than you,” Katelyn said. The Doctor shot her a ‘whose poking the bear now?’ look.

Yvonne’s posture changed immediately. “Are there alien species on planets near Earth?”

“I was referring to the Irish,” Katelyn said. 

Yvonne just barely didn’t roll her eyes. “Look, you can see for yourself.” She looked down at her watch. “Next Ghost Shift's in two minutes.”

“Cancel it,” the Doctor and Katelyn said, voices level.

“I don't think so,” Yvonne scoffed, walking out into the void room again. The Doctor followed.

“I'm warning you, cancel it,” the Doctor repeated.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it.,” Yvonne said, spinning on her heels to confront him. “The Doctor and Katelyn Laurin, lording it over us. Assuming  _ alien authority _ over the Rights of Man.”

While the Doctor was stuck trying to figure out why Yvonne had joined the ranks of ‘people who thought Katelyn wasn’t human’, Katelyn spun and walked toward the glass separating Yvonne’s office from the rest of the room.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Katelyn pulled a small metal cylinder out of her pocket. “The sphere comes through.” She slammed it against the glass, which cracked. “You’ve got a hole in the fabric of space-time-”

“-But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it,” the Doctor continued, walking to Katelyn’s side and pointing the sonic at the glass to help her demonstration along. “The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that's how the ghosts get through. That's how they get everywhere. They're bleeding through the fault lines-”

“- strolling from their world, across the Void, and into this one,” Katelyn continued. “With the whole human race hoping and yearning and pulling them across. Which would be fine, except too many ghosts pressing through, and-”

Katelyn tapped the glass and it shattered.

“Well, in that case we'll have to be more careful,” Yvonne said after only a second of hesitation, turning just slow enough that the Doctor caught the worried look on her face. “Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute.” The Doctor exchanged a quick look with Katelyn, then they both walked after Yvonne.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don't do it,” he pleaded.

“We have done this a thousand times,” she dismissed.

“Then stop at a thousand!” Katelyn shouted.

“We're in control of the ghosts,” Yvonne insisted. The Doctor wanted to scream. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor just glared at Yvonne, but she showed no signs of backing down. She wouldn’t. Too much confidence to be talked sense into.

“Okay,” the Doctor said, turning and grabbing a chair from Yvonne’s office

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked.

“Never mind. As you were.” The Doctor spun the chair around and sat down. Katelyn walked over to the wall and leaned on it, crossing her legs.

Yvonne looked back and forth between them, incencessed. “What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough,” the Doctor conceded. “Said our bit. Don't mind us. Any chance of a cup of tea?” Katelyn pulled a bag of crisps out of her jacket pocket.

“Ghost Shift in twenty seconds,” one of the workers reported.

“Mmm, can't wait to see it.” Katelyn nodded her agreement. She pointedly opened the crisps and started eating.

Yvonne crossed her arms, trying to seem like she’d won. “You can't stop us, Doctor.”

“No, absolutely not,” the Doctor agreed. “Pull up a chair, Rose.” He nodded to Jackie, who stepped closer and put her hand on the back on the chair.

Oh, what the Doctor wouldn’t give to actually have Rose up here right now.

“Think there’ll be fireworks?” Katelyn asked calmly, tossing a crisp toward her mouth but missing. 

“Ghost Shift in ten seconds,” the worker reported. “Nine, eight-” Yvonne’s resolve was slowly fading from her eyes. “-seven, six-” It took monumental effort for the Doctor not to look over at Katelyn, to make sure the start of the shift wasn't hurting her in any way. “-five, four-” The Doctor felt his false smile slipping. Had he miscalculated? “three, two-”

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.” 

Everything powered down.

The Doctor took a deep breath in to hide his sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible.” Yvonne crossed her arms and angled her chin, trying to appear as if she were still in complete control. “But the programme will recommence, as soon as you've explained everything.” 

“I'm glad to be of help,” the Doctor said slowly.

“And someone clear up this glass,” Yvonne shouted to no one in particular. “They did warn me. They said you two like to make a mess.” The Doctor followed Yvonne’s gaze to Katelyn, who had shifted three centimeters closer to the wall with the hole into the Void without having uncrossed her legs.

<...>

Everyone had taken seats in Yvonne’s office except for me. I stood and stared out the window, hoping the turning in my stomach would switch from dread to vertigo if I just stared 600 feet directly down for long enough. I’d thrown my chips away as soon as my point was made, but even the whole three I’d managed to swallow were rebelling. 

I’d… It had been  _ years  _ since I’d watched  _ Doomsday _ . Years even before the two-ish I’d spent in this world. It had hurt too much, even when it was fiction. Erika had teased me endlessly, called me a softie. She’s watched it. She would know how to fix this.

I’d managed to warn the Doctor  _ something _ would happen at Canary Wharf, but my exhaustion and starvation induced plea felt so useless now, so inadequate. If I couldn’t remember enough to help, then why was I even here?

“So these ghosts, whatever they are, did they build the sphere?” Yvonne asked.

“Must have,” the Doctor said, looking entirely too comfortable with his feet up on Yvonne’s desk. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Yvonne suddenly straightened in her seat, then leaned forward and tapped on her laptop. Rajesh’s voice came through, and I stiffened so much I’m surprised I didn’t snap in half. “We don't know who she is, but funnily enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor.”

I forced myself to look as Yvonne turned her laptop so the Doctor and I could see Rose and Rajesh on the webcam. Rajesh looked quite put out; Rose looked a little worried, but relaxed as soon as she saw the Doctor was fine.

“She one of yours?” Yvonne asked, sounding like she already knew the answer. 

The Doctor shook his head, somehow managing to keep his expression even. “Never seen her before in my life.”

“Good. Then we can have her shot,” Yvonne deadpanned. Jackie’s eyes went wide. She was quiet when she was out of her depth.

“Oh, all right then,” the Doctor groused, pulling his feet off the desk and sitting up. “It was worth a try. That's-” He sighed. It was his worried sigh. “-that's Rose Tyler. 

_ “Sorry,” _ Rose said.  _ “Hello.” _ She waved, and the Doctor waved back with such a smitten look on his face on any other day I would have smiled.

“Well, if that's Rose Tyler, who's she?” Yvonne nodded to Jackie. The Doctor had about a second to think “oh shit” before Jackie spoke.

“I'm her mother.”

“Oh, you travel with her mother,” Yvonne said in a tone I would have called teasing if I didn’t hate her.

“He kidnapped me,” Jackie protested.

The Doctor looked like someone had force fed him a whole lemon. “Please,” he said. “When Torchwood comes to write my complete history-” I scoffed. “-don't tell people I travelled through time and space with her mother.”

Yvonne laughed, but was distracted by a clunk in the main room. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped ten degrees. 

“Charming,” Jackie complained.

“I've got a reputation to uphold,” the Doctor lied. I laughed, a mad, nervous sound.

“Keep telling yourself that, Doc.”

“Excuse me? Everyone?” Yvonne walked out of her office, but none of the workers even reacted to her. “I thought I said stop the ghost shift. Who started the programme?” The Doctor was on his feet and we were out the door in a heartbeat. “I ordered you to stop! Who's doing that?” The levers at the end of the room started moving; I felt my footing weaken. “Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.” No one moved. “Gareth, Addy, stop what you're doing, right now. Matt, step away from your desk. That's an order! Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Someone finally obeyed her last order, one lab-coated scientist running forward and trying to pull the lever back by force.

“What's she doing?” The Doctor started running toward a woman at her computer. I ran after him, but stopped dead when I saw her face.

“Martha Jones,” I whispered

“Addy,” Yvonne barked, correcting me without knowing. “Step away from the desk.” The Doctor snapped in front of Adeola’s face a few times, and she didn’t even blink. “Listen to me. Step away from the desk.”

“She can't hear you,” the Doctor said, so quietly I could barely hear him from… Wait hadn’t I been  _ behind _ Adeola’s desk a few seconds ago? “They're overriding the system. We're going into Ghost Shift.” The wall at the end of the room started glowing; my feet almost slid out from under me.

“Katelyn, back! Get behind a wall!” the Doctor shouted at me. I did my best, but it was like walking through swamp water, which I had had the misfortune of doing. “It's the ear piece,” the Doctor said to everyone else, speaking loud enough that he knew I could hear. “It's controlling them. I've seen this before.” He paused, sonic in hand. “Sorry. I'm so sorry.”

The Doctor zapped Adeola's earpiece. She screamed, and so did the other two workers at the computers. They collapsed onto their desks just as I managed to get around the corner of the wall with the elevator.

“What happened? What did you just do?” Yvonne demanded, sounding far less outraged than I would have expected. 

“They're dead,” the Doctor said bluntly.

“You killed them.” Jackie sounded horrified, and that was the moment my clearly dysfunctional brain decided to remind me she knew about the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. 

“Oh, someone else did that long before I got here,” the Doctor dismissed.

“But you killed them!” Jackie shrieked.

“Jackie, I haven't got time for this!” I wanted to run back out and defend him, help him, but I could feel the Void pulling at my very bones, and I was shivering so violently it was surprising I didn’t vibrate through the wall I was hiding behind.

“What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don't,” the Doctor warned.

“But they're standard comms devices,” Yvonne argued. “How does it control them?”

“Trust me, leave them alone!” I heard him move to the other side of the room. I looked just as he stole a quick glance at my hiding place and hoped he couldn’t see the fear in my eyes.

“But what are they?” The hum of machinery was not loud enough to hide the wet squelching noise of Yvonne pulling Adeola’s earpiece off. “Urgh! Oh, God! It goes inside their brain.”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” the Doctor shouted.

“Ninety percent and still running. Can't you stop it?”

“They're still controlling it. They've hi-jacked the system.”

“Who's they?”

“It might be a remote transmitter but it's got to be close by. I can trace it. Jackie, stay here!” The Doctor grabbed my arms as he ran by me, and only through the force of his momentum did I manage to match his speed. Yvonne barked orders behind her, following us.

Even just down the hall from the portal room, the pull wasn’t as bad, but it was still so cold. I should have been concentrating, trying to pull up memories or looking around to notice the things the Doctor inevitably missed, but all I could think about was how I wouldn’t be able to run fast enough if we needed to.

The Doctor stopped in front of a wall of plastic sheets, the kind used to keep dust inside construction areas. The sonic beeped just a bit faster. “What's down here?”

“I don't-I don't know,” Yvonne said, shrugging. “I think it's building work. It's just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor said to Yvonne, while reaching his hand out to me. I only realized how truly cold I was when I took his hand and he felt  _ warm.  _ The Doctor must have noticed too, because he squeezed my hand and kept walking.

“Think again,” Yvonne muttered, following us through the plastic 

After a while, the Doctor paused, staring at the sonic like it had stopped working like he expected.

“What is it? What's down here?” Yvonne asked, clearing thinking the Doctor - or both us, based on her earlier outburst - had caught something with his alien senses. 

“Ear pieces…” he began

“Ear pods,” I confirmed through my chattering teeth.

“This world's colliding with another-'' He paused, held my hand tighter, ready to run. “-and I think I know which one.”

Figures appeared behind the plastic, visually obscured by the curtains but unmistakable in their sound. I tensed, ready to run and a little confused that we hadn’t already.

“What are they?” Yvonne demands.

“They came through first. The advance guard,” the Doctor said, only taking a few steps back as the Cybermen ripped through the plastic sheets to advance on us.

“Is now the time for dramatics?” I shouted. “Cybermen! Run!”

We turned and ran as fast as the Void stuff would allow me to move, the soldiers Yvonne brought opening fire behind us. The Cybermen had already blocked our exit.

Behind us, two droned “Delete” in emotionless unison, and the soldiers screamed as they fell. The Cyberman blocking our exit lowered its arm, but looked no less threatening than it did before. 

“You are Yvonne Hartman. You are the leader of Torchwood,” it said. For the first time, she looked truly scared. The Cyberman shifted half an inch, looking at the Doctor. “You are an unknown upgrade. You will come with us.” Then it turned and walked away, other Cybermen walking up behind us. 

We followed, but the Doctor and I exchanged another look.  _ They can’t see me? _ I signed, staying quiet so I wouldn’t give myself away. 

_ Nothing stuff  _ was all the Doctor managed to sign back before the Cybermen ordered he and Yvonne to put their hands behind their heads. I kept my arms at my side. They did not repeat their order.

They couldn’t see me.

The Cybermen marched us back to the Void room. “Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted as soon as we were in the door. Jackie’s eyes went wide, and she jumped out of the way. “Do what they say. Don't fight them!”

The Cybermen shot the scientists holding back the levers anyway.

“What are they?” Jackie demanded.

“We are the Cybermen,” the one that had been leading us said. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The Doctor stood in front of me, as if that was in any way adequate protection. The levers moved up, and for a split second I was terrified I’d be pulled in. I bit my lip to hold back a scream as I got pulled onto the floor instead. Because that portal at the end of this room wasn’t pulling, not right then. At that moment, a large number of Cybermen were stepping over from the void, and most of them were 600 feet below.

“Online,” the computer reported. The Doctor kneeled down next to me, and I managed to get on my hands and knees and look up.

The shadowy Cybermen appeared darker than usual, marching toward us from the end of the room. Now, we could hear their heavy footfalls.

“Is she-

“Jackie,” the Doctor interrupts quietly, shaking his head. She seems to get the memo, but also looks like she can’t bear not asking.

“These Cybermen, what've they got to do with the ghosts?”

“A footprint doesn't look like a boot,” the Doctor repeated.

“Achieving full transfer.”

My arms and legs gave out. The Doctor’s hands on my shoulders were the only things that kept my nose from smashing into the floor.

“They're Cybermen,” the Doctor said darkly. I couldn’t raise my head to look, but I could hear them. Only half of my trembling was from the chill in the room. “All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

The boots stopped for a second, and I could feel the portal close behind the Cybermen. I managed to push myself back up onto my hands and knees, feeling like I’d just done three consecutive triathlons. The Doctor’s hands stayed on my shoulders.

“They're invading the whole planet,” Yvonne realized.

“It's not an invasion. It's too late for that,” the Doctor said quietly. “It's a victory.”

A computer on the left wall, Adeola’s computer, started blaring. “Sphere activated,” it warned. “Sphere activated. Sphere activated.” 

I lifted my head just in time to see the Doctor shutter his complete and utter panic. “I-I’m ok,” I whispered. “Go.” He nodded, jumped to his feet and stormed over to the lead Cyberman.

“I don't understand. The Cybermen don't have the technology to build a Void Ship,” he said. Jackie glanced at me, then followed the Doctor. “That's way beyond you. How did you create that sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head, as if I could change the future by simply ignoring it.

“What?” the Doctor said. I heard my tears hit the ground before I realized I’d cried them.

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed.”  _ Follow the light. Follow the pull.  _ “Its origin is unknown.”

“Then what's inside it?” I heard the Doctor turn, but I refused to look at him. I couldn’t be the source of that pain. I couldn’t. I refused.

“Rose is down there,” Jackie said, as if that very thought was not plaguing both the Doctor and my minds already. As if I couldn’t feel Rose’s panic from here. As if the Doctor wouldn’t tear the universe apart to keep her safe.

Except he wouldn’t, because she would never want that. Even if it meant the end of them together.

_ Doomsday. _

There was nothing I could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… uh…. Anything going on in the word? Yeah, that’s part of the reason this is so late. Your girl has ADHD and does not do well in online classes. But classes are over now, and I’ve got some free time so… we’ll see…
> 
> Sorry to the two of you who followed the twitter I made for updates. I honestly forgot I made it.
> 
> Anyway, y’all. I really wanted to write “Fear Her”. It would be silly and fun and Katelyn would get to sass the hell out of the now couple of Rose and the Doctor. But this story is already really long in my outline and it just felt like filler. I have some ideas for it, and I still kinda want to write it. I’ve been playing around with the idea of making a sort of “lost scenes” story that would just get updated with the stories I wanted to tell but didn’t fit into the main plot. Let me know if that would interest any of you.
> 
> Anyway, in this chapter, Katelyn is me. I’ve seen “Army of Ghosts” a few times, but I haven’t watched “Doomsday” since my first time through this series in, like, 2012. The sacrifices I make for you guys.
> 
> Wash your hands. Stay at home. See you soon.


	4. Doomsday

The Cybermen marched Yvonne back to her office, silent except for their footsteps

I sat up on my heels, wiped my tears away, and dragged myself to my feet. Just because I didn’t know this part didn’t mean I couldn’t try. Maybe I wasn’t omniscient this time, but was I a companion or wasn’t I? I had to try. 

“What's down there?” Jackie asked. She had tears in her eyes, just barely holding it together. “She was in that room with the sphere. What's happened to Rose?”

“I don't know.” To anyone who didn’t know him, the Doctor probably sounded dismissive or maybe angry. I knew that tone was a defense mechanism.

Jackie started crying, bringing her hand up to her mouth to stifle her sobs. I ran over as quietly as I could and put a hand on her back. I opened my mouth to speak, but the Doctor spoke first.

“I'll find her,” the Doctor promised in a whisper. “I brought you here, I'll get you all out, you and Rose and Katelyn.” Jackie sniffled, trying to pull herself together. “Jackie, look at me. Look at me.” She did. “I promise you. I give you my word.”

Jackie studied the Doctor for a second, and then something shifted in her eyes. She was still clearly terrified, eyes red from crying, but there was something else there now. Realization? Acceptance?  _ Understanding,  _ I realized after a second. It was understanding in her eyes.

“You will talk to your central world authority-” Jackie, the Doctor, and I snapped our attention to the Cyberman - Cyberleader - in Yvonne’s office. “-and order global surrender.”

“Oh, do some research,” Yvonne scoffed. “We haven't got a central world authority.”

“You have now,” the Cyberleader said. “I will speak on all global wavelengths.

“This broadcast is for human kind.” The Cyberleader hadn’t even shifted a inch, but it was clear it wasn’t talking to Yvonne anymore. The Doctor put on his 3D glasses back on, sparing me only a glance and scowling. “Cybermen now occupy every land mass on this planet, but you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex and class and colour and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us.”

The Cyberleader paused, and the Void room fell deathly silent. After a few moments, it walked to the window. We all followed, then watched as parts of London lit up, burning and exploding as the human race refused to back down.

“I ordered surrender.” The Cyberleader’s tone would have been confused if it was capable of emoting.

“They're not taking instructions,” the Doctor spat, indignant on humanity's behalf. “Don't you understand? You're on every street. You're in their homes. You've got their  _ children _ !” That same understanding passed through Yvonne’s expression. Finally. She knew we were on her side. “Of course they're going to fight!”

And that was when I realized I was wearing the same hoodie I’d worn the first time we knocked into Pete’s World. I hadn’t worn it since.

I had Jack’s blaster.

A different Cyberman walked over. “Scans detect unknown technology active within Sphere chamber.” I clenched my hands into fists so tight, my nails cut crescents into my palm. 

“Cybermen will investigate,” the Cyberleader announced. “Units ten six five and ten six six will investigate Sphere chamber.” No one responded in any way we could hear, but the Cyberleader stepped toward Yvonne’s desk, so someone must have responded. Her laptop was still facing the seating area in her office. “Units open visual link.” The view from the eye-sensors of the two Cybermen downstairs appeared on the screen. “Visual contact established.”

It took all my willpower not to step closer to the Doctor. I couldn’t… I couldn’t let him know I almost knew this. He would be… Did any of the languages I spoke have a word to describe the fury and disgust and hate the Doctor would feel if he knew, of all days,  _ today  _ was the day I was fallible? Did they have a word for how much I would hate myself?

I’d worked so hard for his trust. No matter what I did, I was gonna lose it today, wasn’t I?

<...>

No.

_ No,  _ the Doctor thought.

It couldn’t-

This couldn’t be happening.

_ “Identify yourselves!” _ the Dalek,  _ Dalek _ , on Yvonne’s laptop said. The Doctor stepped closer to Katelyn. Dimly, he realized that his respiratory bypass system had kicked in.

_ “You will identify first, _ ” the Cyberman whose eyes they were looking through said.

_ “State your identity,” _ the Dalek repeated.

_ “You will identify first.” _

_ “Identify!” _ The Doctor felt Katelyn shift next to him, but he couldn’t look away from the screen.

_ “That answer is incorrect and illogical. You will identify.” _

_ “Daleks do not take orders,”  _ it insisted. 

_ “You have identified as Daleks,” _ the Cybermen said. It probably would have sounded smug, if it was capable of emotion. Just like the Doctor might have laughed if it were any other two species talking. Like he might have laughed if Rose were standing next to him and not-

“Rose said about the Daleks,” Jackie whispered, leaning closer. The Doctor started breathing again. “She was terrified of them. What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she dead?” 

Before he could ask, Katelyn handed the Doctor her phone. She’d already dialed Rose. He stared at it for a second, then looked up at Katelyn. Her face was carefully expressionless.

It was so hard sometimes to figure out when Katelyn Laurin acted just because she was brilliant and when she acted because she knew the future. He’d thought… 

He should have guessed… he could tell something big was coming. He’d felt it for weeks. He’d been so worried, but he’d let himself get dragged away by how  _ happy  _ he was now.

Katelyn knew. She had to. She’d been four seconds short of a panic attack in Jackie’s flat at the first mention of the ghosts. And now she was silent, expressionless, clearly by effort. She hadn’t looked like that since-

Well, she hadn’t looked like that since he’d abandoned her on the street of London without so much as a goodbye.

Katelyn’s phone stopped dialing. Rose had answered. “She's answered. She's alive,” the Doctor said, relieved for a grand total of half a second. Jackie covered her mouth to stifle her gasp. “Why haven't they killed her?”

“Well, don't complain!” Jackie hissed. 

“They must need her for something,” the Doctor whispered.

As if the universe wanted to answer his question, a Dalek’s voice came through the phone.  _ “We must protect the Genesis Ark.” _

“The Genesis Ark?” the Doctor muttered to himself.

“If we’re getting biblical-” Katelyn tried. The Doctor was already putting on the 3D glasses again.

_ “Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant,” _ one of the Cybermen said. It was harder to see through the laptop screen, but the Dalek was covered in Void stuff as well. Not as much as the Cybermen or Katelyn, but much more than even he was.

_ “Daleks have no concept of elegance.” _

_ “This is obvious. But consider, our technologies are compatible.” _ Katelyn stiffened next to him and the Doctor was inclined to agree. He absolutely did NOT like where this was going.  _ “Cybermen plus Daleks. Together, we could upgrade the Universe.” _

_ “You propose an alliance? _ ” The Doctor would almost call its tone ‘indignant’.

_ “This is correct.” _ The Doctor swallowed hard, very,  _ very  _ glad the 3D glasses would block everyone from seeing the panic that flashed across his face. 

_ “Request denied,” _ the Dalek said.

A Cyberman’s arm came into view on the screen, raised and ready to shoot.  _ “Hostile elements will be deleted.”  _ The Cybermen shot at the Dalek, which did nothing.

_ “Exterminate!”  _ The Dalek shot back, and the screen went dark. Not exactly surprising, that these new and young Cybermen couldn’t challenge a Dalek, but not exactly reassuring either.

The Cyberleader walked to the door into Yvonne’s office and faced the wall. “Open visual link.” The Laptop screen lit up again. Three. There were  _ three more  _ in the Void ship room _.  _ “Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen.”

_ “This is not war,” _ one of the Dalek’s said.  _ “This is pest control.” _

The Cyberleader seemed to be the only one in the room unaffected by that statement. “We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?”

_ “Four,” _ the Dalek says. The Doctor can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.  _ One  _ had taken out a hundred humans.  _ One,  _ confined and knowing it was alone had almost killed Rose, would have if not for her unerring, unknowing kindness.  _ One  _ had only been defeated because it couldn’t bear to be alone.

A million shuffled around and waited for orders and schemed. There was no such thing as a foot soldier among the Daleks. A million wasted time and let him plan.

_ Four,  _ though? Four had none of those hang-ups.

“You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?”

_ “We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek!”  _ The Doctor didn’t doubt it. Yvonne suddenly looked completely out of her depth.  _ “You are superior in only one respect.” _

“What is that?” the Cyberldear asked.

_ “You are better at dying.” _ The Doctor took a gamble, hating himself for possibly putting Rose at risk. He walked behind the Cyberleader to get a closer look at the laptop. He didn’t get much of a chance.  _ “Raise communications barrier!” _

The phone line went dead. “Lost her,” he whispered. He handed Katelyn her phone. She took it, staring a steely glare into the dark laptop screen, like she could change what they'd learned through rage alone.  _ If only. _

“Quarantine the Sphere chamber,” the Cyberleader said, turning back into the room. “Start emergency upgrading. Begin with these personnel.”

The Doctor couldn’t react before Cybermen were grabbing anyone close to them and dragging them away. The Torchwood employees just screamed. Yvonne kept shouting that they’d surrendered, that the Cybermen couldn’t do this. The Doctor lunged for Jackie when they grabbed her, but two Cybermen grabbed him and yanked him back. He struggled, but there was no point. This body was made for running, not wrestling.

“This one,” one of the Cybermen holding him said. “His increased adrenaline suggests that he has vital Dalek information.”

“I don't want to go!” Jackie was screaming, fighting against their pull, but she was as helpless as he was. 

“I demand you leave that woman alone! I won't help you if you hurt her!” the Doctor tried shouting, but it was like screaming at a brick wall for all the Cybermen reacted.

“You promised me! You gave me your word!”

Sometimes he really wondered if Jackie knew he hated that he could fail too. He wondered if she knew how much his failures kept him up at night, more than even a Time Lord could afford to be awake. 

He glanced at Katelyn, hidden from the Cybermen in plain sight, her hand in her pocket and looking like she was going to be sick. But she stayed, stayed right there and glared her determination at him, and she  _ knew  _ today, she had too. Which to him signaled Jackie’s survival.

“Jackie, don't fight. We’ll think of something.”

<...>

I fiddled with Jack’s blaster in my pocket. I’d been so tempted to take it out and just start firing, but what good would that have done? Surely it would have only summoned  _ more  _ Cybermen, and the gun only had so many charges. Even if I didn’t remember much about today, I remembered Jackie survived.

I glanced at the Doctor, sitting curled in the window and staring out at London burning. I figured we had some time, and I had two questions trying to burn holes in my brain. “Why can’t they see me?” I glanced over my shoulder, but the Cybermen were still leaving us alone for now. “Or sense me or however they work.”

The Doctor looked at me, then over my shoulder to the Cybermen. “Well, if they’re anything like the Cybermen from this universe, they ‘see’ sort of on a molecular level- oh.” He focused back on me. “Oh, that’s it! They’re filtering Void stuff out of their vision, but they don’t understand it, not really. They’ve filtered it completely. You don’t register for them at all.”

I frowned. “But they’re covered in Void stuff too,” I pointed out. “They can see each other, can’t they?”

“Maybe not,” the Doctor said. “Maybe they have some other way of tracking each other, some sort of hivemind thingie.”

I opened my mouth, torn between teasing him about ‘thingie’ and asking about the dangers of Void stuff, by the Cyberleader interrupted me by stomping over.

“You are proof,” it said, looking right through me and at the Doctor.

“Of what?” he asked.

“That emotions destroy you.”

The Doctor made a sound that was almost a laugh, expression caught between a bitter smile and heartbreak. “Yeah, I am,” he agreed. The Doctor looked past the Cyberleader, brow furrowing in confusion. “Mind you, I quite like hope. Hope's a good emotion.” A ripple of cold went through the room, and I shivered again. “And here it comes.”

A group of black-clad, oxygen masked... commandos popped into existence by the levers. One of them shouted orders that were muffled by the mask. I didn’t get to see them shoot, because as soon as they raised their guns, the Doctor pulled me to the floor and covered my body with his own. I heard the zap of the guns and something that sounded like a very wet explosion. 

Slowly, the Doctor stood up, offered me his hand, and we walked into the lever room. The… commando (best word for them, unfortunately) stood up. “Doctor? Katelyn Laurin? Good to see you again.” He removed his oxygen mask, and  _ fuck  _ I was starting to remember this now.

“Jake?” the Doctor questioned.

“The Cybermen came through from one world to another,” he explained casually, as if strolling from one universe to another was not a  _ phenomenal  _ feat. “And so did we.” The Doctor put on the 3D glasses.

Jake turned to the commandos. “Defend this room,” he commanded. “Chrissie, monitor communications. Kill one Cyberleader and they just download into another. Move! 

The commandos ran off. The Doctor practically ripped his glasses off. 

“You can't just, just, just hop from one world to another!” he cried. “You can't.”

“We just did,” Jake said simply. “With these.” He pulled two yellow medallions out of his pocket and tossed one to each of us. The Doctor fumbled a bit to catch his. 

I remembered these. These were  _ important.  _ Why were they important?

“But that's impossible,” the Doctor said, staring down at the medallion. “You can't have this sort of technology.”

“We've got our own version of Torchwood,” Jake said, looking a bit smug. God, did Torchwood just  _ imbue  _ smugness? “They developed it. Do you want to come and see?”

Jake didn’t wait for an answer and pressed down on the button around his neck. The Doctor cried out, grabbed for my arm, but we were already moving. 

I felt like all the breath had been pulled out of my lungs and I was so cold it  _ burned  _ and I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, didn’t exist-

We landed in the parallel Torchwood, and my legs buckled completely under me. The Doctor managed to get his already outstretched arm around me before I fell, marking the second time today his grip was the only thing keeping me from breaking my nose. 

“That’s not supposed to happen,” Jake said, and I raised my head just enough to glare at him.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, clearly only to me. “The TARDIS protected us from the worst of it last time. And the broken bond probably distracted you…” His worry faded once my feet were under me again. “I thought you liked the cold?” he teased.

“This isn’t natural,” I said, technically answering the Doctor’s question, but also still glaring at Jake. “It’s… bone deep. Internal. Wrong.”

Jake sighed, looking around. “Parallel Earth, parallel Torchwood,” he explained as if  _ that  _ was what I had a problem with. “Except we found out what the Institute was doing and the People's Republic took control.”

“I've - we’ve - got to get back,” the Doctor said. “Rose is in danger! And her mother!”

“That'd be Jackie,” Pete Tyler said, strolling in like all was normal. I remembered thinking he was an  _ ass,  _ but I couldn’t remember why. “My wife in a parallel universe. And as for you, Doctor, at least this time I know who you are.”

“Right, yes, fine, hooray,” the Doctor said flatly, running over to Pete. “But I've got to get back, right now.”

“No, you're not in charge here,” Pete said snidely. The Doctor’s eye narrowed, his back straightened. I shifted to match his posture. “This is our world, not yours. And you're going to listen for once.” The Doctor stared Pete down for a second, perhaps hoping Rose’s stubbornness came from her mother’s side of the family. Unfortunately for him, Rose had gotten a double dose of genetic stubbornness. 

The Doctor, clearly knowing he had to listen but not need to  _ like it _ , walked over to the wall at the end of the lever room and pressed his ear against it. 

My heart stopped beating, and I had to look away before the Doctor noticed, because  _ that moment  _ was not something that needed to be fresh in my memory. It was already burned in place. I took that opportunity to find a good place to hide the small package I’d packed after Krop Tor, when I realized I didn’t know enough to save them.

Pete sighed, but followed the Doctor to the wall. “When you left this world, you warned us there'd be more Cybermen. So we sealed them inside the factories.”

“Except people argued,” Jake said. The Doctor turned and leaned on the wall instead. That hurt less to look at. “Said they were living. We should  _ help _ them.”

“And the debate went on,” Pete said, sounding tired. “But all that time, the Cybermen made plans. Infiltrated this version of Torchwood, mapped themselves onto your world, and then vanished.”

“When was this?” the Doctor asked.

“Three years ago,” Pete said. 

“It's taken them three years to cross the void, but we can pop to and fro in a second,” the Doctor mused, walking away from the wall. 

“Well, there’s a lot of them,” I offered, falling into step when he passed me. 

“There are,” the Doctor agreed. “Must be the sheer mass of all five million Cybermen crossing all at once.”

“Yeah, Mickey said you'd rattle off that sort of stuff,” Pete said. 

The Doctor looked around, like Mickey would be summoned by being mentioned. “Oh, where is the Mickey boy?”

_ Where’ s Erika?  _ tried to burn it’s way out of my throat, but I swallowed it down. She clearly wasn’t here, and that was that.

“He went ahead first,” Pete said. “Him and Rickey.”  _ But not Erika. _ Any chance to go and find Miss Rose Tyler.”

“She's your daughter,” the Doctor reasoned. I raised an eyebrow, but for once decided not to question his methods. “You do know that? Did Mickey explain?”

“She's not mine,” Pete said, almost before the Doctor stopped speaking. “She's the child of a dead man.”

“Where’s Mrs. Moore?” I asked. I needed to speak, and she was much safer to ask about. Jake smiled, an honestly joyful smile.

“Retired ‘bout a year ago,” he said. “Moved up north. She sends us pictures of her and her kids sometimes.”

I matched his smile, feeling light, useful, for the first time in  _ months _ . “That’s wonderful. Tell her I said hi.” 

“Look at it, a world of peace,” Pete said, nodding out the window we’d walked to. This London, zeppelins and all, was decidedly  _ not  _ on fire. Certainly more peaceful than the one we’d left. “They're calling this The Golden Age.”

“Who's the President now?” the Doctor asked.

“A woman called Harriet Jones,” Pete said, sounding impressed.

“Oof. I'd keep an eye on her.”

“But it's a lie,” Pete continued. “Temperatures have risen by two degrees in the past six months. The ice caps are melting. They're saying all this is going to be flooded. That's not just global warming, is it?”

“No,” the Doctor said. The version of me that was my mother’s daughter wanted to say that ‘climate change’ was a more appropriate term, and it was rather more complicated than-

“It's the breach,” Pete guessed.

“I've been trying to tell you. Travel between parallel worlds is impossible,” the Doctor said. “Then the Daleks break down the walls with a Sphere-”

“Daleks?”

“-Then the Cybermen travelled across, then you lot. Those discs-” The Doctor walked over to Jake. “-every time you jump from one reality to another, you rip a hole in the universe. This planet is starting to boil! Keep going and both worlds will fall into the Void!” The Doctor stormed out of the room, only stopping when Pete spoke again.

“But you can stop it? The famous Doctor. You can seal the breach?”

“Leaving five million Cybermen stranded on my Earth,” the Doctor said.

“That's your problem,” Pete dismissed. Anger flared in my chest, but, as if he could sense it, the Doctor put a hand on my arm. “I'm protecting this world, and this world only.”

The Doctor hummed, smiling. “Pete Tyler. I knew you when you were dead.” Pete’s smile vanished. “Now here you are, fighting the fight…alone.”  _ Ah.  _ So that was the angle the Doctor was gonna play. “There is a chance, back on my world, Jackie Tyler might still be alive.”

“My wife died,” Pete said instantly, like he’d been repeating it, like he’d had to say that when he knew they were crossing to another Earth. 

“It’s easy,” I whispered, the first time I’d bothered to speak to Pete. “If she’s even half the woman you remember it’ll be as easy as your next breath.” I forced myself to meet Pete’s eyes. “Just ask your Erika Kumar how quickly I fell back in love.”

Pete paused for a minute. I raised an eyebrow, crossed my arms. “There's more important things at stake,” Pete said. Then, quietly “Help us.”

“What, close the breach? Stop the Cybermen? Defeat the Daleks?” the Doctor stepped back, and I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was really doubtful, or if it was a test for Pete. “Do you believe we can do that?”

Pete smiled. I wondered how blind twelve-year-old me had been to not see that he was just a man hurting, just a man trying to save his world and not knowing how. “Yes.”

“Maybe that's all we need.” The Doctor smiled, pulled the medallion out of his pocket. “Off we go, then!”

He pressed the button and for another second I felt like I was dying and yet already dead, and then we were back in our Torchwood. 

I managed to stay upright on my own, but only because I stumbled into the non-broken glass panel of Yvonne’s office. I ripped the medallion away from my body and threw it  _ hard  _ against the nearest wall. Everyone turned toward the sound of it crunching, then back at me. For the first time since I realized what day it was, I locked eyes with the Doctor. “ _ Never  _ make me do that again,” I begged. “ _ Please,  _ never- I - I can’t-”

I felt - fuck I felt like I hadn’t felt in almost two years. I felt tired, and scared, and - and  _ wrong.  _ For the first time since… god since before the Doctor had even regenerated, I almost couldn’t tell which version of reality I was inhabiting. Which version I belonged to. Which version-

“-telyn? Katelyn!” I looked up at the Doctor, barely taller than me when he was kneeling and I was sitting, feeling like I was just a scared little girl again. “ _ Never, _ ” he promised. “You will never cross the void again.” I nodded, honestly incapable of speech at that moment. “Can I borrow your phone again?”

I blinked at him for a second, since he’d literally never asked before, then dug it out and handed it to him. He took a second to find Jackie’s contact, but the phone only rang for a second after that before Jackie picked up

“ _ Oh, my God, help me. _ ”

“Jackie, you're alive!” the Doctor cheered, shifting to sit next to me instead of kneel. I leaned on him before I realized I was moving. “Listen-”

_ “They tried to download me but I ran away!”  _ Jackie shouted, loud enough that I could hear even with the phone not on speaker.

“Listen, tell me. Where are you?” 

Jackie paused for a second, just breathing. _ “I don't know. Staircase.” _

“Yeah, which one?” the Doctor asked. “Is there any sort of sign? Anything to identify it?”

“ _ Yes, a fire extinguisher!” _

“Yeah, that helps,” the Doctor said sarcastically. I smiled just a little bit.

“ _ Oh, wait a minute,”  _ came Jackie's voice. _ “It says N3.” _

“North corner, staircase three,” the Doctor translated. “Just keep low, we're trying our best.”

_ “No, don't leave me,”  _ Jackie begged.

“Jackie, I’ve got my phone,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than it felt. “If something happens, you can call me back.

“But  _ only  _ if something happens,” the Doctor added, hanging up. He jumped to his feet, and I followed much slower. “Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler.”

“She's not my wife,” Pete insisted, in a tone that said he couldn’t believe we were still trying this.

“I was at the wedding. You got her name wrong,” the Doctor teased. Pete kept staring at the space the Doctor left behind. “Now then, Jakey boy-” The Doctor took Jake’s gun from him. “-if I can open up the bonding chamber on this thing, it'll work on polycarbite.”

“What's polycarbite?” Jake asked.

“Skin of a Dalek.”

<...>

_ This is a terrible idea.  _ “This is a terrible idea,” I whispered.

The Doctor shook a piece of white paper speared on a pointer Yvonne had on her office desk around a corner. Loud footsteps signaled we’d finally found a corner that Cybermen were lurking around. The Doctor gave me a reassuring smile, since this was a  _ terrible idea,  _ then stepped out. 

“Sorry. No white flag,” he said, setting the pointer on his shoulder. “I only had a sheet of A4. Same difference.”

The Cybermen raised their arms. One stepped forward. “Do you surrender?” it droned.

“I surrender…” The Doctor stepped forward. “Unto you-” He only stopped when he was level with the Cyberman. “A very good idea.”

<...>

“Ready?” the Doctor asked. He was wearing the 3D glasses and had the sonic pointed at the lock.

“No,” I admitted. I stopped fiddling the pair he’d given me and slipped them over my regular glasses. “Allons-y.”

The Doctor soniced the lock, which was pretty loud. We exchanged a nervous look, and slipped in before the doors. Rose was talking. By some miracle, she’d completely distracted the Dalek’s.

“-then you're going to listen,” she was saying, staring a Dalek directly in its eye stalk, not four inches away from it. “I met the Emperor, and I took the Time Vortex and I pulled it into his head and turned him into dust. Do you get that? The God of all Daleks, and I destroyed him.” Rose laughed. 

“You will be exterminated!”

“Oh now, hold on,” the Doctor said. Rose spun, the biggest smile on her face. The Doctor smiled to match. Mickey also smiled, but Rickey just looked relieved. “Wait a minute.”

“Alert, alert. You are the Doctor!” a black Dalek said.

“Oh, very impressive,” I said, slow clapping just to make sure everyone was  _ fully  _ aware of how sarcastic I was being. I’d asked the Doctor on the way down. He’d said the Daleks were much more advanced than Pete’s Cybermen. He didn’t think they’d have trouble filtering Void stuff the right way. 

“Sensors report he is unarmed,” a different Dalek - the standard brown - said. I stopped walking, and the Doctor’s steps stuttered. The Daleks weren’t acknowledging me. I’d been psyching myself up to hear ‘Time Lord reborn’ again, but they… they didn’t even seem to know I was there. 

“That's me,” the Doctor agreed. “Always.”

“Then you are powerless,” the black Dalek said. 

“Not me. Never.” The Doctor tore his glasses off, which I took as my cue to remove mine. “ How are you?

“Oh, same old,” Rose dismissed, her nervous smile telling another story. “You know.”

“Good.” The Doctor reached for Rose’s hand and gave it a squeeze

“Ickeys! How’d undercover work treat you?” I asked.

Rickey’s eyes went wide, but Mickey just shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“How’d you know we were-” Rickey started.

“Social interaction will cease!” the one of the bronze Daleks commanded.

“How did you survive the Time War?” the black Dalek asked.

The Doctor stopped smiling. “By fighting,” he said. “On the front line.” Rickey, bless him, looked very confused. Rose grabbed the Doctor’s hand again, and I rested mine on his arm. “I was there at the fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that.” He swallowed. “But you lot ran away!”

“We had to survive,” the black Dalek said.

“The last four Daleks in existence.” Oh, how many times was he going to say a phrase like that? “So what's so special about you?”

“Doctor, they've got names,” Rose said. The Doctor’s eyebrows shot right up. “I mean, Daleks don't have names, do they? One of them said they-”

“I am Dalek Thay,” the one Rose had gestured to said.

“Dalek Sek,” the black Dalek identified.

“Dalek Jast.”

“Dalek Caan.”

“So that's it!” the Doctor cheered, sounding far happier than he should have. “At last. The Cult of Skaro. I thought you were just a legend.”

“Who are they?” Rose asked.

“A secret order above and beyond the Emperor himself,” the Doctor explained, pacing around the room. I whistled, not because I was impressed, but because that was a phenomenally bad idea. “Their job was to imagine, think as the enemy thinks. Even dared to have names. All to find new ways of killing.”

The Doctor also didn’t sound impressed.

“But that thing-” Mickey gestured to the Dalek-shaped thing that I guess was the Genesis Ark. “-they said it was yours. I mean, Time Lords. They built it.”

“What does it do?” Rickey asked.

“I don't know. Never seen it before,” the Doctor said, looking it over.

“But it's Time Lord,” Rickey argued. “That’s you species innit?”

The Doctor frowned. “Both sides had secrets.” He glanced at me - never a good sign - then looked back to Dalek Sek. “What is it? What have you done?”

“Time Lord science will restore Dalek supremacy,” Sek explained. 

“And what does that mean?” the Doctor asked. “What sort of Time Lord science? What do you mean?”

“They said one touch from a time traveller will wake it up,” Rose said.

“Technology using the one thing a Dalek can't do. Touch,” the Doctor sneered. “Sealed inside your casing. Not feeling anything ever, from birth to death, locked inside a cold metal cage.” Rose stepped up beside the Doctor, grabbing his arm even as she glared at the Dalek. “Completely alone. That explains your voice,” the Doctor said like she was just coming to the realization. “No wonder you  _ scream.” _

“The Doctor will open the Ark!” Sek commanded.

The Doctor laughed, walking away. “The Doctor will not.”

“You have no way of resisting,” Sek said.

“Well, you got me there,” the Doctor admitted. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out. “Although there is always this.”

“A sonic probe?” Sek sounded incredulous.

“That's screwdriver,” the Doctor corrected, almost pouting.

“It is harmless.”

“Oh, yes. Harmless is just the word.” The Doctor tossed the sonic between his hands. I tensed, ready to run. Rose noticed and matched my posture. “That's why I like it. Doesn't kill, doesn't wound, doesn't maim. But I'll tell you what it does do. It is very good at opening doors.”

The Doctor pressed the button of the sonic down, and all hell broke loose. 

True to the Doctor's comment, every door that could lead into this room burst open. Cybermen and Pete’s world commandos rushed in, firing as soon as the Dalek’s were in their sights. They hit one of them, which screeched and flailed about as much as a Dalek could.

Rose, the Doctor, and I dropped to the ground, under the line of fire, and started crawling toward the main exit. Rose stumbled, but Pete caught her and helped her along. Her eyes widened, but I had a feeling she had already figured out he might be here. The Ickeys dove for their guns, shooting behind then as they crawled toward the doors. Rose got there first, the Doctor immediately on her heels. I stumbled and scrambled backward the rest of the way out the door.

That meant I got a great view of Mickey tripping and catching himself on the Genesis Ark.

The Dalek’s that the Cybermen had managed to disable recovered, firing back. The rest of the humans retreated out the door, which the Doctor locked behind them. “Jake, Rickey, check the stairwell.” They nodded and ran off, Jake catching Rickey up as they went. “The rest of you, come on.”

We got around three corners, Mickey watching our back, until he ran up to fall in line with the Doctor. “I just fell, I didn't mean it!”

“Mickey, without us, they'd have opened it by force. To do that, they'd have blown up the sun,” the Doctor explained. Without breaking his stride, he turned and kissed Mickey’s forehead. “You've done us a favour. Now, run!”

We kept running. We ran up a few flights of stairs and down more corridors. I completely lost track of where we were.

“You will be upgraded.” We skidded to a stop, but the Cybermen were facing away from us. 

“No, but you can't.  _ Please.”  _ Ah, and that was why.

As soon as Jackie spoke, Pete ripped Mickey’s gun out of his hands and shot the Cybermen. Jackie watched them fall, then stepped over their bodies toward us.

“Pete?” She just sounded surprised.

Pete had to take a few breaths before he could speak. “Hello, Jacks.” 

“I said there were ghosts, but that's not fair,” Jackie cried. Rose started biting her nails. I knew she wanted to answer, wanted to comfort her mom, but she knew they needed to have this conversation. I knew that too. “Why him?”

“I'm not a ghost,” Pete said.

“But you're dead,” Jackie argued like she couldn’t bear it if he were real, like all her grieving would have been for nothing. “You died twenty years ago, Pete.”

The Doctor, who did not understand that they needed to have this conversation, stepped forward. “It's Pete from a different universe,” he explained. Understanding dawned in Jackie’s eyes, but the Doctor kept going. “There are parallel worlds, Jackie. Every single decision we make creates a parallel existence, a different dimension where-”

“Oh, you can shut up,” Jackie whispered. The Doctor, wisely, nodded and stepped back. Mickey watched him, amused. “You look old,” Jackie breathed. Pete smiled.

“You don't,” he said. I found myself smiling. If nothing else good came out of this, at least the two of them found each other again.

“How can you be standing there?”

“I just got lucky,” Pete dismissed. “Lived my life.” Pete swallowed, halfway to not asking his next question. “You were left on your own. You didn't marry again, or…”

“There was never anyone else,” Jackie said. The Doctor looked down at his shoes, but Mickey had a bit of a chuckle. “Twenty years, though. Look at me. I never left that flat. Did nothing with myself.”

Pete shook his head. “You brought her up. Rose Tyler.” Rose smiled shyly. The Doctor and Mickey both smiled at her. “That's not bad.”

“Yeah,” Jackie agreed. 

“In my world, it worked. All those daft little plans of mine,” Pete laughed. “They worked. Made me rich.”

“I don't care about that,” Jackie dismissed. “How rich?”

“Very.”

“I don't care about that,” Jackie repeated in the same tone. “How very?” Rose rolled her eyes, which she was allowed to do because that was her mother. Pete snorted, and Jackie breathed out a laugh in response. 

“Thing is though, Jacks, you're not my wife.” Jackie stopped smiling. “I'm sorry, but you're not.” Pete sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to tell jackie. “I mean, we both….” Jackie nodded, but Pete kept going. “You know, it's just sort of- Oh, come here.”

Pete threw down the gun he was still holding and started running at Jackie. She ran right back at him, jumping into his arms as soon as she was close enough. Pete caught her and held her as close as he could. 

The Doctor walked over to his own Tyler, who was crying happy tears, and wrapped an arm around her waist. Rose turned her face into the Doctor’s chest, even though she was smiling.

I turned away from both couples. Not to hide my tears; everyone was crying. I didn’t even have to hide that they weren’t all happy tears. At least the Doctor and Rose could guess I was crying about Erika too. 

“ _ Hope in the darkness _ ,” she had said when I’d asked her how she managed to watch this episode with a smile. “ _ I like sad things as long as there’s hope in them too.” _

She was right, of course.

<...>

We could hear the battle raging in the warehouse before we were even close. 

“Right,” the Doctor started. “I’ll go in-”

“I’m going in,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “Oh, honestly. I’m  _ invisible  _ to the Cybermen, the humans aren’t gonna shoot at me, and the Daleks are distracted.” I counted my points off on my fingers. “I’m going.” 

The Doctor hesitated, but he knew I was right. “Fine. We’ll need the Magnaclamps.”

I nodded, and creaked the door in front of me open just enough to look through. The Storage warehouse was a warzone, so chaotic it wasn’t even clear who was shooting at who. I took a deep breath and sprinted in. A shot went over my head, so I dropped into a slide and let my momentum carry me to the crate. “Thank you two years of softball.” I wait for a second, looking back at the doors I’d come through to worried expressions from Rose and the Doctor. I smiled to reassure them, jumped up, snagged the Magnaclamps, and dashed back to the door.

Rose yanked them shut behind me, but the Doctor, 3D glasses on again, pushed them open slightly and looked out. 

“Override roof mechanism,” a Dalek said. Gears groaned and creaked, signaling the roof opening. “Elevate.”

“What're they doing?” Rose wondered. “Why do they need to get outside?”

“Time Lord science. What Time Lord science? What is it?” the Doctor muttered. “We've got to see what it's doing.” He turned and started running, back in the direction we’d come, toward the stairs. “We've got to go back up. Come on! All of you. Top floor!”

“That's forty five floors up!” Jackie cried. “Believe me, I've done them all.”

“We could always take the lift,” Jake said. We skidded to a halt and looked back. He and Rickey were leaning out the elevator doors, smiling. 

“You’re my favorite Ickey, R!” I said.

We took the elevator up to the top floor, then ran all the way back to Yvonne’s office. I dropped the Magnaclamps on her desk and joined everyone at the window.

The Genesis Ark was spinning, slowly but picking up speed. One Dalek flew out, but then the Ark turned away, and four more flew out. They just kept coming.

“Time Lord science,” the Doctor repeated. “It's bigger on the inside.”

“Fuck,” I said, since that was the only thing that seemed appropriate to say.

“Did the Time Lords put those Daleks in there?” Mickey asked. “What for?”

“It's a prison ship,” the Doctor realized.

“How many Daleks?” Rose asked.

“Millions.”

We watched the Daleks spread out over London, helpless. Cybermen started shooting up at them, and the Dalek’s started shooting back. Even with my shields as tight as they had to be today, I could still sense the world below me getting quieter, as… 

As  _ so many  _ people died.

“The Battle of Canary Wharf,” I whispered. 

“I'm sorry, but you've had it,” Pete said, marching away from the window. I ripped myself away from it too. I couldn’t bear to watch when I couldn’t help. “This world's going to crash and burn. There's nothing we can do. We're going home.” He took a yellow medallion from a commando. “Jacks, take this. You're coming with us.”

Jackie didn’t even look at it. “But they're destroying the city.”

“I'd forgotten you could argue,” Pete laughed. “It's not just London, it's the whole world.” He slipped the medallion over her head. “But there's another world just waiting for you, Jacks. And it's safe as long as the Doctor closes the breach. Doctor?”

The Doctor turned around, smiling like a loon and wearing the damn 3D glasses again. “Oh, I'm ready. I've got the equipment right here.” He ran and rebooted one of the computers. “Thank you, Torchwood. Slam it down and close off both universes.”

“Reboot systems,” the computer reported.

“But we can't just leave,” Rose argued, looking at me for vindication. “What about the Daleks?” The Doctor ran to the next computer. “And the Cybermen?”

“They're part of the problem, and that-” The Doctor spun and pointed at Rose. “-makes them part of the solution. Oh yes!” Rose laughed nervously, and I smiled. “Well? Isn't anyone going to ask what is it with the glasses?” I pulled the pair he’d given me out of my pocket. 

“What is it with the glasses?” Rose asked.

“I can see! That's what!” the Doctor said, as if that was a sufficient explanation. “Because we've got two separate worlds, but in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cybermen travelled through the Void to get here. And you lot-” The Doctor pointed at the gaggle of people from Pete’s world. “-one world to another, via the Void. Oh, I like that. Via the Void. Look.”

He took his glasses off and put them over the eyes of a giggling Rose. “I've been through it. Do you see?” He swayed back and forth. Rose laughed and stuck her hand out, trying to trail her fingers through the invisible particle.

“What is it?”

“Void stuff,” the Doctor explained.

“Like um, background radiation,” Rose said.

“Yes!” The Doctor kissed her forehead again. “But, unlike radiation, it’s not harmful to humans. Look at the others.” The Doctor turned Rose around. “And the only one who hasn't been through the Void, your mother. First time she's looked normal all in her life.”

“Oi.”

“But the Daleks lived inside the Void,” the Doctor continued, running toward the end of the room. Rose ran after him. “They're bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them. I just open the Void and reverse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside.”

“Pulling them all in!” Rose cheered.

“Pulling them all in!” the Doctor agreed.

“Sorry, what's the Void?” Mickey asked.

“The dead space,” the Doctor explained. “Some people call it Hell.”

“I’m people,” I said. Rose finally looked over at me. Her smile disappeared.

“So you're sending the Daleks and Cybermen to Hell,” Rickey said.

“I told you he was good,” Mickey confirmed.

“God, Katelyn,” Rose whispered. She looked at her own hand and turned to the Doctor. “We've all got Void stuff, because we went to that parallel world. We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in.”

“It’ll be slower for us, since we got so much less,” the Doctor said. He turned to the group of humans. “You've got to go. Back to Pete's world. Hey, we should call it that. Pete's World.” Pete smiled. “I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll all be safe on that side.” 

“And then you close it, for good?” Pete asked.

“The breach itself is soaked in Void stuff,” the Doctor explained. “In the end it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput.”

“But we stay on this side?” Rose asked. The Doctor and Rose shared a look deep enough to contain an entire conversation. Short summary: The Doctor wanted Rose on the other side of that wall, because it meant she’d be safe. Rose wasn’t having any of it, and would never be having any of it. The Doctor knew this, and had already conceded to her argument.

That was new. I’m fairly sure I remember Rose getting sent over one extra time and coming back. 

“But you'll get pulled in,” Mickey said.

“That's why we’ve got these.” The Doctor ran into Yvonne’s office and grabbed the Magnaclamps. “Rose and I'll just have to hold on tight.”

“No hold on-” Jackie started.

“Wait, ‘Rose and I’-” I tried. The Doctor and Rose exchanged another one of those ‘whole conversation in a glance’ looks.

“Mickey, if you could finish rebooting the computer system,” the Doctor said. Mickey got right to work. The Doctor grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the elevator.

“Now wait just a goddamn-”

Canary Wharf shook. I tried to look back into the room, but the Doctor grabbed my shoulders and yanked me back to face him.

“Katelyn,” he started, tone laced with worry. “You have to go down to the TARDIS.”

“Excuse-”

“The Cybermen slipping into this world,” the Doctor continued, more worry in his tone with every syllable.  _ “Slipping, _ only opening a space big enough to finish coming through, completely pulled you to the ground.” Canary Wharf shook again. “Katelyn,  _ please,  _ just be selfish this one time. I’m begging you.”

“But I-”

“If there was something you could have done, you would have done it already.”

“But-”

“Katelyn Laurin, I promised you would never touch the Void again.” Now his tone was firm, and I knew he wouldn’t budge. “If you don’t go now, I can’t keep that promise.” 

The scared little girl feeling was back, and suddenly all I wanted to do was find a safe corner to hide in. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, and let go of me.

“You’ll have about five minutes to get there.”

<...>

The Doctor walked back into the Void room just as those who were going to Pete’s world winked out of existence. Rose Tyler was standing alone in the middle of the room, trying very hard to make it seem like she wasn’t crying. The Doctor walked over and hugged her from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head. Rose rested her hands over his.

“Once the breach collapses, that's it,” the Doctor whispered. “There’s still time. You could-”. 

“No,” Rose said firmly, turning and pressing her face into the Doctor's chest. “It hurts, but I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you.” The Doctor, as he so often was, was completely gutted by Rose’s loyalty. He… he knew humans grew up expecting to outlive their parents, but outliving your parents and  _ making the choice  _ to never see them again were two different things. 

Late into the night, when Rose was sleeping and he couldn’t make himself leave her despite not needing to sleep himself, the Doctor would often wonder what he’d done that the universe had given him Rose Tyler. 

“So what can I do to help?” she asked.

“Systems rebooted,” the computer reported. “Open access.”

Reluctant as always, the Doctor pulled away. “Those coordinates over there, set them all at six.”

Rose and the Doctor ran around the room, doing whatever they could with Torchwood’s systems to prepare the breach to be torn open. Every now and then the Doctor paused, reached out in the telepathic field, and was relieved to find Katelyn further away each time. He kept expecting her martyr complex to win over her fear and have her running back up here. 

“We've got Cybermen on the way up,” Rose said. The Doctor ran over to her, looking at her computer over her shoulder.

“How many floors down?”

“Just one.” But as soon as Rose said the words, the Cybermen’s tracking signals blipped out one by one, until there was only the one remaining. It held for a few seconds, then started walking down the stairs, away from them.

“Right,” the Doctor said, confused. “Wish we had time to figure that out.”

“Levers operational.” The Doctor beamed. Yes.  _ Yes!  _ The Cybermen hadn’t damaged the system. That was the last hitch. This was going to work.

“That's more like it,” Rose said. “Bit of a smile. The old team.”

“Hope and Glory,” the Doctor agreed, handing a Magnaclamp to Rose. “Mutt and Jeff, Shiver and Shake.” He gave her a quick kiss and moved over by the levers.

“Which one's Shiver?” Rose asked, mirroring him on the other wall.

“Oh, I'm Shake.” They lifted the Magnaclamps to the walls. “Press the red button. When it starts, just hold on tight. Shouldn't be too bad for us but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void stuff. Katelyn too, but-” He checked one last time. Her telepathic presence was muted, but not the kind of muted that came from distance. “She’s safe in the TARDIS. Are you ready?” They kneeled, ready to move the levers.

“So are they.” Rose nodded out the window. A few Daleks were hovering, clearly ready to bust in.

“Let's do it!” They pushed the levers and grabbed the Magnaclamps. The Doctor was just tall enough that he could wedge himself on the lever. Even with that, he could still feel the pull of the Void. Rose was lifted entirely off her feet, but she also managed to brace herself against the lever.

The Daleks outside the window were not so lucky. They crashed through, flying by and  _ screaming  _ as they went. The Doctor laughed, watching them go. Eventually, the Dalek’s were joined by the Cybermen. It was working! It was-

One Dalek flew through and crashed into the wall by Rose’s lever. As far as the Doctor could tell, it missed the actual lever, but apparently, it hit some part of it. The lever sparked and shifted, barely ten centimeters off the mark. 

“Offline.”

The suction from the Void dropped almost instantly. The Daleks started to regain their… well not  _ footing _ , but footing. The Cybermen were not as lucky, but the Doctor had no illusions that would keep up.

Rose stretched, but she was just barely too far away to grab at the lever. 

… No.

No, this couldn’t-

The Doctor’s hearts stopped. This was… this was what he’d been sensing. This was the nearly fixed point on their personal timelines that he’d tried to warn Rose about. The point Katelyn had used what she thought were her last moments alive to warn him about.

_ “The Battle of Canary Wharf,”  _ she’d said.  _ “It’s- Rose-”  _ She hadn’t managed anything else, which was expected given she hadn’t eaten in about three days.

Rose shouted sometime that the Doctor couldn’t hear over the wind.

Then she let go of the Magnaclamp. 

The Doctor screamed, nearly let go himself with how much he wanted to reach for her. Rose had a firm grip on the lever, even as the Void pulled her to the other side. The lever fell further, but Rose, his brave, beautiful,  _ brilliant  _ Rose, managed to get her feet under her and push the lever upright.

“Online and locked.”

The suction built up again immediately. Slightly closer to the Void and with nothing to brace against, Rose was pulled sideways. The Doctor screamed, begged her to hold on as he watched her fingers slip. The Doctor unhooked one of his arms from his Magnaclamp and reached for Rose, too desperate to bother thinking that  _ of course  _ that wouldn’t work, because this was  _ Rose Tyler.  _ He couldn’t lose her. Not yet. Not like this. Not when they’d barely begun.

Rose’s fingers slipped, and all the Doctor could do was watch as Rose fell, screaming, toward the Void. He was screaming too, he thought, but his own body felt distant. The Void was  _ Hell,  _ and Rose was going to fall into it.

Then, there was Pete Tyler. He just… he just popped in, right in Rose’s path. He caught her, and they both vanished back across the Void. 

The wind died down, and the breach into the Void crumbled in on itself, sealing.

Forever.

“Systems closed.”

For a second, the Doctor stayed right where he was, stunned. It… this was… that… Rose was alive, but she was… she was still…

Numbly, still not feeling fully connected to his body, the Doctor walked toward the wall where the breach had been. He pressed his hand against it, then turned his head and pressed his ear against it too. He reached, as best as he could, stretched telepathic muscles he hadn’t used since the Time War, and just  _ there  _ on the edge of his reach, around the frayed edges of the still closing breach, he could feel Rose. 

The devastation she was feeling quieted, so he knew she could feel him too. The path he’d managed to build was too weak for words. He tried to send her something,  _ anything,  _ positive, but he couldn’t find anything to give.

Just a few seconds of mental contact, and then she was gone.

Broken-hearted didn’t even begin to describe the agony the Doctor felt as he walked away from the white wall that had so recently been a path into the Void. He… No language had words for this pain, the pain of knowing you’d  _ failed,  _ completely and utterly to protect the one person that meant more to you than your next breath. No language had a word for how hard it was to push away from that pain, because you  _ had  _ to carry on. Because you couldn’t just give up, no matter how badly you wanted to.

Somehow, through the soul crushing loss, he managed to make it to the lift. He trudged forward, couldn’t even find it in himself to be mad at the stolen and dangerous technology around him (he’d call UNIT later). There was a path of dead Cybermen leading to the TARDIS. He didn’t bother thinking what that meant, refused to let his brain connect the holes in their chest with the sonic blaster one Captain Jack Harkness had once had.

The Doctor slid his key in the TARDIS door, heard the lock click, but when he pushed, the door didn’t budge. Too emotionally exhausted to even conjure frustration, the Doctor just pushed the door again. On the third time, the door swung open faster than he’d pushed it. For a second, he thought the TARDIS herself had swung the door open, but then he saw Katelyn Laurin.

_ She must have been leaning against the door, _ was the only coherent thought the Doctor’s brain could process before he found himself with an armful of weeping human. It took him a few moments of Katelyn sobbing into his suit coat to realize she was here. Here and  _ alive _ and now he was hugging her back, holding her tight enough to him that he could feel her single heart racing against his chest. 

He… he hadn’t lost everything. He’d lost Rose, he’d lost his second heart. But his oldest friend and his best friend were still there, and maybe that could keep the first one beating.

<...>

When she heard the sobbing stop, she knew it was finally time to come into the room. It had been  _ so hard  _ to not walk in sooner, to not reveal herself. She’d wanted-

Well, she’d wanted a lot of things in life. 

She walked into the abandoned office, let Rose Tyler be comforted by the people she knew first. There was an envelope package, right in the middle of the desk. Obviously, someone was meant to find it. Probably not her, since the only words written on the outside were “For Rose. For Doomsday”, in Katelyn’s wonderfully smudged handwriting. How Kata- How Katelyn had never figured out how to not smudge pen, left handed or no, she would never know. It was all part of her charm.

She turned and walked into the main part of the room, her boots thunking on the tile floor and echoing in the silent room. Pete Tyler was the first to turn.

“Erika, I thought you were sick.” Everyone but Rose turned around then. Mickey, the only one who she’d told so far, looked like someone had punched him.

She shrugged. “Rickey and Jake asked me to be their courier again,” she lied. “Told me to tell you everyone who went across got back safely.” 

Rose turned around. She must have recognized Erika Kumar’s voice. 

Erika squared her shoulders, misty eyed, but determined. She’d dressed the same way she always had to at this  _ fucking  _ job, like the other Torchwood agents. But she had her hair pulled back in a rainbow colored bandana, and was wearing a necklace with a ring on it.

She let Rose look her over, watched the moment her eyes landed on the ring, saw the moment she realized what it was. 

An engagement ring.

<...>

I’d barely gotten the words “you’ll need a Supernova” out of my mouth before the Doctor was running to the console, hands flying over the controls. We didn’t take off though. “I’m scanning” was all he told me when I’d had to ask after 30 minutes of silence. “Probably going to take a few hours, if you want to get some sleep.”

I did not want to get some sleep, but I did know I needed sleep. I brought a sleeping bag into the console room and passed out on the grating while the Doctor worked. He worked furiously, only stopping when I brought him food, and never to sleep. 

Four days later, we were in orbit. I think… I think I remembered this taking longer before, so maybe they’d have a little more time.

Rose flickered into existence before us, perfectly solid except for the fact that she was standing in the console. She turned toward us, confused.

“Where are you?”

“Inside the TARDIS,” the Doctor explained. “There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about to close, and it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova.” The Doctor laughed bitterly. “I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye.”

Rose shook her head. “You two look like ghosts.” 

“Hold on.” The Doctor soniced something on the console, three lights went from green to red. The world behind Rose turned solid, letting us see clear to the end of the beach, where three figures were huddled near an old truck.

Rose stepped closer, and raised her hand. “Can I-”

“I’m still just an image. No touch.” The Doctor spoke like it pained him, like he wanted nothing more than to be able to touch Rose.

“Can't you come through properly?” she asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”

“And believe me, Rose,” I said. “He looked.”

The Doctor smiled, a tiny, forced thing. “Where are we?” he asked, squinting at the background. “Where did the gap come out?”

“We're in Norway,” Rose said.

“Norway. Right.”

“About fifty miles out of Burgen. It's called 'Dårlig Ulv Stranden'.” I winced at her pronunciation, although now was not the time to correct her. 

“Dalek?” The Doctor looked ready to tear two universes apart if there were Daleks.

“Dårlig,” Rose butchered again. “It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay.” We all laughed, quiet and breathy and sad. “How long have we got?”

“‘Bout two and a half minutes,” the Doctor said gently. 

Thirty seconds. I managed to get him here a little early, and all that earned us was  _ thirty fucking seconds _ . That was nothing, no time at all.

“I can't think of what to say!” Rose laughed.

“I can,” I said quietly. “I don’t have much. I don’t want to use your time.” Rose looked like she wanted to argue, but I kept going. “Thank you for being the kind of friend I needed when I got here. I know I…” I shook my head. “Without you and Jack, I’m not sure I’d even be alive right now. Thank you and-and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“I forgave you,” Rose said. She opened her mouth to say something, glanced at the Doctor, and decided not to say anything. “This isn’t your fault.”

I nodded. The Doctor had said as much several times over the last four days, much to my suprise. This wasn’t failure, he had insisted, it was ignorance. I couldn’t fix that now, so I just smiled at Rose, then turned and walked out of view, out of the console room and into the hallways. I didn’t go far, just enough to be out of view of them both.

There were a few seconds of silence in my wake. “You've still got Mister Mickey, then?” the Doctor said. I rolled my eyes. 

“There's five of us now,” Rose said. “Mum, Dad, Mickey…and the baby.”

“You're not...?” the Doctor breathed, and fuck,  _ fuck,  _ that hurt so much more knowing I had pushed them together. Because that was not the tone of a man who thought the love of his life had already moved on. 

“No,” Rose laughed. “It's mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way.”

“And what about you?” The Doctor asked. “Are you…”

“Yeah, I'm back working in the shop.”

“Oh.” The Doctor sounded surprised. “Um, good for you.”

“Shut up. No, I'm not. There's still a Torchwood on this planet. It's open for business. I think I know a thing or two about aliens.” I heard Rose’s wink.

“Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth,” the Doctor said, voice so full of pride. He paused. “You're dead, officially, back home. Katelyn checked before I could stop her.” As if he wouldn’t have checked himself. “So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead. Here you are, living a life day after day.” The Doctor’s voice wavered. “The one adventure I can never have.”

Rose had to take a loud breath before she managed to speak. “Am I ever going to see you again?” Her voice cracked behind her tears.

“You can't.”

“What're you going to do?”

“Oh, I've got the TARDIS and Katelyn,” the Doctor said, forced casual tone fooling no one. “Same old life, last of the Time Lords.”

Rose took another shuddering breath. “I-” I brought my hand up to my move and bit my palm. I would  _ not cry.  _ It was not my time to mourn. “I love you.” 

“Quite right, too,” the Doctor said. I wanted to run out and make him say it, but they just laughed like that was some private joke. “And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it-” The Doctor’s voice cracked, cutting off. That was when I realized that maybe, sometimes, thirty seconds was all the time in the world. “Rose Tyler, I love you too.”

I waited for a moment, took a few deep breaths and swallowed my own grief. Then, I walked into the console room almost afraid of what I’d find.

The Doctor had fallen to his knees, hugging himself, shaking, and crying silently. I walked over slowly, legs weighed down by my own grief, and kneeled in front of him. I tried to reach out and snapped my hand back several times, but wasn’t that exactly what I’d wanted? When  _ I’d _ lost my whole world, all I’d wanted was someone to help me, to hold me and tell me it would all get better.

I put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, just to let him know I was there. He had other ideas, pulling my into the tightest hug I’d ever experienced and sobbing into my shoulder. I opened and closed my mouth several times, but what was I supposed to say? ‘It’ll be alright’ felt hollow to even think. ‘I’m sorry’ just felt wrong.

I decided to do what I’d always done when my little brother was crying. I ran my hand up and down his back and hummed. Not any particular song, just some notes in an order. Maybe it was a human thing, singing for comfort, but a human comfort was what I could provide.

It didn’t take long for the Doctor to stop shaking.

“How are you alright right now?” he managed.

“Because one of us has to be, and I don’t want it to be you.” I tried to check my watch over his shoulder. It had already been a minute since we lost contact. “Although, you’ll probably want to be on your feet in a few seconds.”

“Why?” he asked, pulling away and getting to his feet anyway, rubbing his face clear of tear tracks. The wet spot on my shirt was not going to be as easy to erase. 

“Dignity.”

“What?”

I felt a shift in the air. We turned toward the doors. Donna Noble spun around to face us.

“Ah!” she squeaked.

“What?” the Doctor asked, voice raising in pitch.

“Who are you?” Donna demanded, looking between us.

“B-But-?” 

“Where am I?” Donna continued.

“What?”

“What the hell is this place?”

_ “What?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say this time! Just that I’m changing updates to Sundays now. Still every other week, just every other Sunday instead of Saturday.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Please review! I live off validation.


	5. The Runaway Bride

“What?” the Doctor repeated for the fifth time. I looked back and forth between him and Donna, ready to step in if I needed to. “You can't do that. I wasn't-” He looked at the console, but sure enough the time rotor was chugging up and down. “We're in flight. That is, that is physically impossible! How did-”

“Tell me where I am,” Donna interrupted, looking entirely ready to throw down. “I demand you tell me right now! Where am I?”

“Inside the TARDIS,” the Doctor said, still sounding stunned. 

“The what?” Donna sounded incredulous.

“The TARDIS.”

“What?”

“The TARDIS!” I repeated. I wanted to keep going, but Donna wasn't having that.

“The what?”

“It's called the TARDIS,” the Doctor explained, running to the console and… I don’t know, but he was definitely doing something.

“That's not even a proper word,” Donna shouted.

“It’s an acronym, technically-” I tried.

“How did you get in here?” the Doctor asked.

Donna scoffed. “Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who's paying you?” The Doctor gave me a look as if I could explain the thought process of all humans. I gave him a ‘fuck if I know’ look back. “Is it Nerys? Oh my God, she's finally got me back. This has got Nerys written all over it.”

The Doctor looked completely bewildered, and I was halfway to joining him. “Who the hell is Nerys?” we asked.

“Your best friend,” Donna sneered.

“Hold on, wait a minute.” The Doctor looked Donna up and down. “What are you dressed like that for?”

“I'm going ten pin bowling,” Donna said calmly. I laughed. “WHY DO YOU THINK, DUMBO? I was halfway up the aisle! I've been waiting all my life for this. I was just seconds away, and then you-you two-” Donna stalked between the Doctor and I, like she couldn’t decide who to be more mad at. “I don't know, you drugged me or something!”

“We haven't done anything!” I shouted. The Doctor nodded from where he was working.

“I'm having the police on you!” Donna just kept going. “Me and my husband, as soon as he is my husband, we're going to sue the living backside off you!” Donna paused, and I saw the exact moment she saw the doors. She made a break for it, running as fast as her wedding heels would let her on the grating.

“No, hold on-” I ran after her, the Doctor not far behind me. “Don't!”

Donna threw the doors open just as I got my hand around her arm. I needn’t have bothered. As soon as Donna saw the nebulous leftovers of the supernova we’d been circling, she stopped dead.

“You're in space,” the Doctor explained. “Outer space. This is my… space… ship. It's called the TARDIS.”

“Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” I said. “It’s an acronym, see?”

“How am I breathing?” Donna asked, sounding like she wasn’t.

“The TARDIS is protecting us,” the Doctor said.

“Who are you?”

“I'm the Doctor,” he said. “This is-” He hesitated long enough that I almost introduced myself. “She’s Katelyn. You are?” 

Donna turned away from the nebula. “Donna.”

“Human?”

“Yeah.” A beat. “Is that optional?”

“Well, it is for us,” the Doctor mumbled. 

“You're aliens.” Donna, bless her, sounded like she believed us, but couldn’t believe this was the direction her day had taken. “Both of you.”

I opened my mouth to say no but… Who would it hurt to pretend for a little bit? And wasn’t it sorta true if you counted being from another universe?

The Doctor and I nodded. We both wanted to pretend.

“Same kind?” Donna asked. Neither of us answered. “It's freezing with these doors open.” 

The Doctor reached and pulled the doors shut. When we turned around, I spotted one of Rose’s jackets thrown across the railing. “I don't understand that and I understand everything. This-” He gestured to Donna, who looked offended despite having no clue what was happening. I walked as discreetly as I could over to Rose’s jacket. “This can't happen! There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside. It must be-” The Doctor grabbed one of those wand-things eye doctors use and leaned way into Donna’s personal space. “Impossible-”

“I’m gonna start keeping a tally of everytime you say that.”

The Doctor ignored me. “-Some sort of subatomic connection? Something in the temporal field? Maybe something pulling you into alignment with the Chronon shell. Maybe something macro-mining your DNA within the interior matrix. Maybe a genetic-”

Donna slapped him. 

I took their moment of distraction to pick up Rose’s jacket and pitch it into the newly reopened hallway. The hallway which closed as soon as the jacket was past the threshold. No need to have that conversation. 

“What was that for?” the Doctor shouted.

“Get me to the church!” Donna shouted right back.

“Right! Fine!” The Doctor tossed the tool down and started dashing around the console. I don't want you here anyway! Where is this wedding?”

“Saint Mary's,” Donna spat. “Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System.”

“Local arm,” I added. “Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group-”

“Are you done?” the Doctor interrupted. 

“Observable universe,” I added. The Doctor shook his head, smiling just a tiny bit.

“Right, Chiswick.”

<...>

The TARDIS landed without any of her usual fanfare, humming something like an apology. The Doctor frowned, but Donna was already halfway to the door, so we had no choice but to follow her.

“I said Saint Mary's,” Donna groused, stepping out and looking around. “What sort of Martians are you? Where's this?”

“An alley?” I guessed. “We land in those a lot.”

“Something's wrong with her,” the Doctor muttered, running his hand up and down the side of the TARDIS, as if to comfort her. “The TARDIS, it's like she's recalibrating!” He ran inside. One glance at Donna’s expression told me I needed to stay with her. She walked around the TARDIS. I followed, trying not to make it look like I was hovering. 

“Donna?” I asked quietly, at the same time the Doctor shouted her name. She just kept walking a slow circle around the TARDIS.

“You've really got to think. Is there anything that might've caused this?” the Doctor continued. Anything you might've done? Any sort of alien contacts?”

“Not that you’d know,” I added. “It’s hard to tell when something’s actually alien”

“Katelyn, don’t let her go wandering off-”

“I’m already doing that!”

“Donna,” the Doctor continued, clearly in full ramble mode. “Have you, have you seen lights in the sky, or did you touch something like- something, something different, something strange?” Donna poked her head back in the TARDIS door. “Or something made out of a box of metal or…” Donna stumbled back out, hand over her mouth like she was gonna be sick.

I stepped behind her and raised my hands up in a placating matter. “Donna, I know it’s a lot-”

“Who're you getting married to?” the Doctor continued. “Are you sure he's human?” I sighed and buried my face in my hands. Clearly, Rose took their one brain cell with her to Pete’s World. “He's not a bit overweight with a zip around his forehead, is he? Donna!”

I raised my head and spun around. Donna had run past me, holding her dress up and getting away from the TARDIS as fast as her heels would let her. The Doctor and I ran after her.

“Donna-” I tried again.

“Leave me alone. I just want to get married.”

“Come back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor said.

“No way,” Donna snapped. “That box is too…weird.”

“It's just bigger on the inside,” I said. 

“Oh! That's all?” Donna snarked. The Doctor sighed, and we gave up on getting her back to the TARDIS. “Ten past three. I'm going to miss it,” Donna sighed.

“You can phone them?” The Doctor didn’t sound sure. “Tell them where you are?” 

“How do I do that?”

“Haven't you got a mobile?” the Doctor asked, looking over Donna, again like he thought I was some ambassador for humanity and could answer all his questions.

Donna stopped walking. “I'm in my wedding dress. It doesn't have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with pockets? When I went to my fitting at Chez Alison, the one thing I forgot to say is give me pockets!”

The Doctor nodded. He looked about halfway to embarrassed. “Katelyn-”

“Dead,” I reported, holding up my phone. “It’s been, like, 14 hours since I charged it, and I actually used it for once.”

Donna eyed my smartphone with wide eyes. “Oh no,” she declared. “No stupid Martians are going to stop me from getting married. To hell with you!” Then, she took off running again.

“I'm- I'm not, We’re not, I'm not from Mars,” the Doctor sighed. We ran after her.

Donna ran down to the street and started calling for a taxi. Every one that passed ignored her. The Doctor ran down and joined her, but the Taxi’s kept ignoring them.

“Are you gonna help?” the Doctor shouted at me.

“Small. Town. Girl,” I emphasized. “ How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know what I’m doing.”

The Doctor sighed as two more taxi’s flew past. “Do you have this effect on everyone?” he said to Donna. “Why aren't they stopping?”

“They think I'm in fancy dress,” she dismissed.

The next taxi that whizzed past had it’s window rolled down. “Stay off the sauce, darling!” the driver shouted.

“They think I'm drunk.”

Another, non-taxi car drove by. “You're fooling no one, mate!”

Donna looked down at her dress. “They think I'm in drag!”

“Does drag look different this side of the pond?” I asked, looking Donna over. “Because your eyebrows are entirely too normal to be in drag.”

The Doctor did one of those piercing whistles people do in movies and a taxi made a quick U turn to pick us up. We shoved into the back seat awkwardly. There was absolutely not enough room for three adults, even with one of those adults being as much of a beanpole as the Doctor was.

“Saint Mary's in Chiswick, just off Hayden Road,” Donna said. “It's an emergency. I'm getting married. Just hurry up!” The driver took off.

“You know it'll cost you, sweetheart?” he said. “Double rates today.”

“Ugh, capitalism again.”

“Oh, my God,” Donna said. “Have you got any money?” I raised an eyebrow to say ‘did you hear what I just said?’

“Uhhhhhh, no,” the Doctor said. “Haven't you?”

“Pockets!” 

The taxi screeched to a halt. We got out, which my shoulders were very happy about, but Donna’s mouth was not.

“And that goes double for your mother!” 

“Good lord,” I whispered. The Doctor looked like he agreed with me.

“I'll have him,” Donna continued. “I've got his number. I'll have him. Talk about the Christmas spirit.”

The Doctor looked around. “Is it Christmas?” I frowned at the banners proclaiming Christmas sales at the Mall we’d landed near. Ah, the Doctor. High intelligence, very low wisdom. The perfect 5th edition wizard. I missed Dungeons and Dragons.

“Well, duh,” Donna said like we were the dumbest people she’d ever meet. “Maybe not on Mars, but here it's Christmas Eve.” She looked around. “Phone box! We can reverse the charges!”

I thought back to the day I met the Doctor. “Hold on, doesn’t the TARDIS have a ph-” Donna and the Doctor were already running. “Right.” I ran after them.

“How come you're getting married on Christmas Eve?” the Doctor asked.

“Can't bear it. I hate Christmas,” Donna said. “Honeymoon, Morocco. Sunshine, lovely.” She picked up the phone. What's the operator? I've not done this in years. What do you dial? 100?”

“I grew up in the US.”

“Well aren’t you helpful,” Donna snarked. I flinched, and Donna looked surprised.

The Doctor soniced the base part of the payphone. Donna looked at him instead. “Just call the direct.”

“What did you do?” Donna asked.

“Something…” The Doctor hesitated. “Martian. Now phone. We'll get money!” 

We ran over to an ATM. There was a man using it, so we had to wait. The Doctor bounced from foot to foot.

“You know, I never asked,” I said quiet enough that the man in front of us wouldn’t hear. “Do you actually have a bank account or are we about to rob London Credit Bank?”

“Why would I have a bank account?” He sounded bewildered.

“Didn’t UNIT pay you when you worked for them?” 

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth several times. “I suppose they did.”

“How do you not know these things?”

The man in front of us finished. The Doctor moved up before the man had stepped away and soniced the ATM as discreetly as possible. I stood in between him and the crowd. A huge number of bills slide into the payout.

“Follow up question, do you know how pounds work?” 

The Doctor pocketed the bills and turned toward me, then stopped and looked over my shoulder. “Did Ro-” The Doctor’s voice cut out and he abruptly looked away.

He was going to say something about Rose. It was Christmas. Last Christmas. Something from last Christmas that involved Rose. Failure. Ok, not helpful brain. Rose, last Christmas, something I wasn’t there for-

And “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” playing on brass instruments.

Donna shouted from the road before I couldn turn around and alert the robot Santas. “Thanks for nothing, spaceman! I'll see you in Court.” And because it was just one of those days, Donna got into the taxi being driven by another robot Santa.

The Doctor did a quick panic spin. I turned toward the Santas as the one with a tuba started lowering its instrument toward us. The Doctor sonicked the ATM. It started spitting out every bill it had. People cheered and started jumping to grab the money out of the air. I yelled “MERRY CHRISTMAS” behind me as we ran back to the TARDIS.

We were in and up to the console in record time. The Doctor took off, never once touching the dematerialization lever. Useless, I paced back and forth in front of the scanner, watching us slowly close in on the blinking red dot that was Donna. 

Everything went fine for a few minutes, then the TARDIS groaned her complaint and very pointedly made several non-essential (I think) parts of the console room flare dangerously. The Doctor grabbed a mallet hanging off the console and swung.

“Behave!” he scolded

“Well if you stopped hitting her!” I shouted. 

The TARDIS swooped down so suddenly my stomach got left behind, then bounced back up a few feet.

“Katelyn, I need you to fly the TARDIS,” the Doctor said, as if that were, in any way, a reasonable request.

“What?” I said, since that was all my brain was capable of remembering.

“Just-” The Doctor kept running his circuit around the console. “I need to get Donna out of the car.”

“Wouldn't I be better at that job?”

“The door might be locked!”

“I know how to use the sonic!”

“Just-” The Doctor started walking toward the door. “Hold that lever steady and pull that one down when I tell you.”

I sighed. This wasn’t the time. “Hold right, pull left. Got it.”

The Doctor pulled the doors open and leaned against them for balance. “Open the door!” he shouted out. I strained to try and see past him. “Open the door!” I could sort of see the car Donna was in, but the tint on the window kept me from seeing much else. The sonic buzzed, and Donna pulled the window down.

“Santa's a robot,” she said.

“Donna, open the door,” the Doctor repeated.

“What for?” she shouted back.

“You've got to jump!”

“I'm not blinking flip jumping. I'm supposed to be getting married!” she screamed.

The taxi Donna was in sped away. The Doctor stared for a second, probably thinking “really?” or possible “could this day get worse?” He turned so I could hear him better. “Katelyn, left!” I pulled the lever in my left hand, and the TARDIS sped to catch up with the taxi. Not, of course, before she threw off some more sparks. 

We bounced again, and the Doctor almost looked like he was going to fall out.

When we were level with the taxi, the Doctor tried the sonic again. Nothing happened. “Listen to me,” the Doctor shouted to Donna again. “You've got to jump. 

“I'm not jumping on a motorway,” Donna shouted. I groaned.

“Whatever that thing is, it needs you,” the Doctor reasoned. “And whatever it needs you for, it's not good! Now, come on!”

“I'm in my wedding dress!” 

“Yes, you look lovely!” the Doctor dismissed. “Come on!”

Donna opened the door. The Doctor reached, ready to catch her. She made the mistake of looking at the road.

“I can't do it.”

“YES YOU CAN!” I shouted.

“Trust us,” the Doctor said. “Please.”

Donna stared for a second, breathing heavy and terrified. Then, she took a deep breath and launched herself from the taxi, screaming. The Doctor caught her, and they both fell over. The Doctor kicked the doors shut.

“Is my other hand on altitude?” I asked. The TARDIS hummed an affirmative while the Doctor was still catching his breath. I considered the height of the lever and our height off the ground, then pushed. The TARDIS shook a bit, then rocketed upward, away from the road.

<...>

The Doctor emptied a full fire extinguisher through the TARDIS doors, only slightly combating all the smoke coming out. The TARDIS hummed weak, but clearly ok. The Doctor tossed the fire extinguisher in and closed the doors.

We walked over to Donna. “The funny thing is,” the Doctor started. “for a spaceship, she doesn't really do that much…flying. We'd better give her a couple of hours.”

Donna was staring out over London. “Donna, are you alright?” I asked, walking to stand next to her.

She shrugged. “Doesn't matter.”

“Did we miss it?” the Doctor asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can book another date,” I offered. 

“Course we can.”

“You've still got the honeymoon,” the Doctor said.

“It's just a holiday now.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor muttered. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” Donna said instantly. “Either of you.”

“Oh?” the Doctor smiled. “That's a change.”

“Wish you had a time machine,” Donna mused. “Then we could go back and get it right.” 

I hummed sceptically. “Even if we did, I couldn't go back on someone's personal timeline,” the Doctor said. “Apparently.”

Donna gave us a weird look, and walked to sit on the edge of the roof, still looking out. I stuck my hands in my pocket and sat next to her. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the wind. 

“God, you're skinny,” Donna said. I cracked my eyes open as a jacketless Doctor sat on my other side. “This wouldn't fit a rat.”

“Eats twice his weight in sweets everyday, so I can’t imagine how,” I added. Donna gave me a look that said she understood that we were kindred spirits. 

“Katelyn, I think that counts as 127,” the Doctor said. I stuck my tongue out at him. “And, Donna, you'd better put this on.” He pulled a gold ring out of his pocket.

“Oh, do you have to rub it in?” Donna complained.

“Those creatures can trace you. This is a bio-damper,” the Doctor explained. “Should keep you hidden.” The Doctor handed me the ring, which I slid onto Donna’s right ring finger. Just because she had to wear the ring didn’t mean I had to to actually rub it in.

Donna stared at her hand for a second, then sighed loudly. “So, come on then,” she prompted. “Robot santas, what are they for?”

“Ah, your basic robo-scavenger,” the Doctor explained. “The Father Christmas stuff is just a disguise. They're trying to blend in. I met them last Christmas.”

“I was a little late,” I said. “Didn’t get to see them.

“Why, what happened?” Donna asked.

“Great big spaceship,” the Doctor said. “Hovering over London? You didn't notice? 

“I had a bit of a hangover.”

“I hadn’t slept in almost 20 hours,” I said. “I managed to remember it.”

“Oi, whose side are you on?” Donna said.

The Doctor looked like he wanted to lecture me on my lack of Christmas sleep, but neither of us were likely to forget the dressing down Jackie Tyler had given Rose and I when she’d found out, and that was… a lot worse than the Doctor could lecture. 

He looked back out over the city. “We spent Christmas Day just over there.” He nodded in the general direction of Jackie’s flat. “The Powell Estate, with this family. My…” The Doctor stopped. I leaned on his arm. “Our friend, she had this family. Well, they were…” They were my family, I knew he was thinking. I was thinking it too. “Still. Gone now.”

There was a second of silence before Donna spoke. “What happened to your friend?”

“Question is,” the Doctor deflected. “What do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS?”

“Not the way I did,” I said.

“No,” the Doctor agreed. “No, the TARDIS let you in. And she wasn’t in flight then.” He paused. “Donna, what's your job?”

Donna sighed. “I'm a secretary.” 

The Doctor pulled the sonic out of his pocket and started scanning Donna. “It's weird,” he said, unprompted. “I mean, you're not special, you're not powerful, you're not connected-”

“Doctor!” I snapped. His teeth clicked with how quickly he snapped his mouth shut. He dropped his hand with the sonic to his lap.

“It’s good you keep her around,” Donna said. I sat up a little straighter, preening. Donna rolled her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I was a secretary once,” I remembered. “I worked at a school, for this ass of a headmaster.” Donna laughed. “What about you?” 

“I'm at HC Clements. It's where I met Lance,” she said dreamily. “I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh really. I'd spent the last two years at a double glazing firm.”

“A what?” I whispered to myself.

“Well, I thought I'm never going to fit in here. And then he made me a coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee. I’m sure you know.”

“Brought a thermos,” I confirmed.

Donna laughed. “Lance, he's the head of HR! He didn’t need to bother with me. But he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. So that's how it started, me and him. One cup of coffee. That was it.”

“When was this?” the Doctor asked.

“Six months ago,” Donna said smugly. I laughed, wondering how she’d react to me waiting 18 whole years to be old enough to marry the person I’d loved since I knew how to.

“Bit quick to get married,” the Doctor said.

“Well, he insisted,” Donna said, a bit too quickly to be telling the truth. “And he nagged, and he nagged me. And he just wore me down. And then finally, I just gave in.”

“What does HC Clements do?” the Doctor asked.

“Oh, security systems,” Donna said. “You know, entry codes, ID cards, that sort of thing. If you ask me, it's a posh name for locksmiths.”

“Keys,” the Doctor said to himself, like that was supposed to be really significant.

“Anyway, enough of our CVs,” Donna said. “Come on, it's time to face the consequences. Oh, this is going to be so shaming. You can do the explaining, Martians.”

“Yeah. We’re not from Mars,” the Doctor said. He stood and helped me to my feet, then took his jacket from Donna.

“Oh, I had this great big reception all planned,” Donna said. “Everyone's going to be heartbroken.”

<...>

A grand total of zero people were heartbroken. It made me worried about the kind of company Donna Noble kept if their response to her complete disappearance was to party. I mean, even her mother was dancing. That was deeply concerning.

Our entrance stopped the fun, atleast. 

Donna stopped just inside the entrance, arms crossed and furious. People caught sight of her one by one and stopped whatever they were doing. Eventually, the music cut out. “You had the reception without me?” Donna demanded.

A dark skinned man, Lance, I presumed, shouldered to the front of the crowd. “Donna, what happened to you?”

“You had the reception without me?” Donna repeated.

“Hello, I'm the Doctor.” He leaned forward. “This is Katelyn.”

Donna turned to us. “They had the reception without me.”

“Yes, I gathered,” the Doctor said at the same time I said “That was rude.”

“Well, it was all paid for. Why not?” a blonde woman sneered.

“Thank you, Nerys,” Donna sneered right back.

“Well, what were we supposed to do?” Donna’s mother walked forward, looking snide and disappointed. “I got your silly little message in the end. ‘I'm on Earth’? Very funny. What the hell happened?”

As if those words triggered everyone else's grievances from the day, the entire crowd started demanding how she’d done it, where she’d been, why she was only coming back now.

Donna looked back at us, then turned toward the crowd and burst into crocodile tears. Everyone shut up instantly. Lance walked over and hugged his bride, and everyone applauded, except Nerys, who didn’t seem to be fooled. Donna winked at the Doctor and I. I smiled.

“Oh, I like her.”

<...>

The Doctor had been to human wedding receptions before. They were fun, alway filled to the brim with joy. But it had been, blimey, it had been a while. Certainly before the war. His… eighth body, probably. That one loved a party. 

And he certainly hadn’t been to one since falling in love with a human.

“Ah ha!” Katelyn suddenly declared, snapping the Doctor back to the present, away from the couple he’d been… watching. “It lives!” She passed her phone, still plugged in to the portable battery she’d found in her pocket, to the Doctor.

He slipped on his glasses and quickly typed ‘HC Clements’ into the search function on her web browser, then soniced it. It was much faster than actually hacking. The files on the phone screen scrolled through thousands of pages of code and documents, until it stopped on the one he was looking for.

HC Clements, sole proprietor - 

Torchwood.

As calmly as he could make himself, probably still visibly furious, he handed Katelyn her phone back and leaned on the bar. 

“Doc?” she asked, gently and as quiet as she could in this chaotic environment. He shook his head. If he said something now, he was either going to regret it, cause a scene, or both.

Probably both.

Katelyn leaned on the bar next to him, humming along with the song blaring over the speakers. That was enough of a distraction that he wouldn’t both regret his next words and cause a scene.

“You know this song?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Katelyn hummed. “Erika adored it.”

Quite suddenly, the Doctor remembered he wasn’t the only one nursing a broken heart. And that this particular scenario was probably a lot more painful to her.

“Do you want to leave?” he asked. Katelyn blinked up at him, like she had no idea what he was talking about. “I know the ceremony would probably be worse…”

“Oh.” Katelyn shrugged, but she was hugging herself, trying to make herself smaller. “Erika and I weren’t really planning on getting married anytime soon. Just wanted to be able to introduce each other as “my fiance”. Partially cause it’s not a gendered term, and, you know. Homophobia and all that.” The Doctor nodded, because even if he’d never heard that exact word, he understood the concept.

“Even-” Katelyn paused. “Even when we had gotten married, it wouldn’t have looked like this. Much smaller. Our parents-” Katelyn looked down at her shoes. “Actually, I don’t want to talk about it.” The Doctor nodded, deciding not to mention the tear he saw land on the ground. 

Looking around the room to avoid letting Katelyn realise he could see her crying, the Doctor spotted something he hadn’t even thought he needed. There was a man with a video camera.

“Katelyn.” The Doctor walked over to the man, Katelyn following close behind.

“Excuse me-” The man looked up from his camera. “Did you record the ceremony?”

The man took a tape out of his pocket and put it in the camera. “Oh, I taped the whole thing,” he said. He stepped away from his camera, pushing the screen toward the Doctor. “They've all had a look. They said sell it to ‘You've Been Framed’. I said, ‘more like the News’. Here we are.”

The video showed Donna halfway up the aisle, just like she’d said. Then she started screaming, turned to golden energy, and flew out of the ceiling.

But that looked like- “Can't be,” the Doctor muttered. “Play it again?”

“Clever, mind,” the camera man said, rewinding. “Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping.”

The Doctor watched the video again. “But that looks like Huon Particles,” he muttered.

“Which are?” Katelyn asked. 

“Impossible.” He took off his glasses to Katelyn rolling her eyes. “They’re ancient. Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years. So old that-” Oh. Oh no. “-it can't be hidden by a biodamper!”

The Doctor ran to the entrance. The robo-scavengers were already approaching. He ran back into the main room. Katelyn had already pulled Donna aside and was trying to explain everything to her.

“My God, it's all my family,” he heard Donna say. She looked around the room. He used the momentum from all the running to grab Donna and Katelyn and keep going.

“Out the back door!” They ran, but there were robo-scavengers out there too. “Maybe not.” They ran back inside, across the room to some French windows. The scavengers were there too.

“We're trapped,” Donna realized.

One of the scavengers raised a remote control. The Doctor turned around to the massive Christmas trees that took up most of the room’s corners. 

“Christmas trees,” he said. Katelyn swore quietly in agreement.

“What about them?” Donna asked.

“They kill.” The Doctor and Katleyn ran over, yelling and pushing all the nearest people away from the tree. Donna, apparently deciding they were worth trusting now, also shouted, pulling the children away from the tree.

“Oh, for God's sakes, the man's an idiot,” Donna’s mum snapped. “Why? What harm's a Christmas tree going to- Oh.”

The plastic baubles started floating off the trees. Which meant… which meant it wasn’t the tree… it was-

“Under the tables!” Katelyn shouted. The conviction in her voice was enough to convince several humans to dive under the nearest table before the first bauble slammed into the ground and exploded. Most listened after that. In the chaos, the Doctor shoved his way toward the DJ sound desk.

The force of one bauble threw him over. He sat there for a second. Katelyn had not followed him. He wasn’t sure if that was reassuring.

The explosions stopped. The Doctor jumped to his feet. The scavengers were all standing in a row. “Oi! Santa!” the Doctor shouted, despite the fact that they were already looking at him. “Word of advice. If you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver-” He flipped the mic in his hand and brought it to his mouth. “-don't let him near the sound system.” 

The Doctor jammed the sonic into a port that wasn’t really big enough for it and pressed the button. The sound that came out was agonizing. The humans all pressed their heels to their ears, but that was nothing compared to the robots shaking completely to pieces.

The Doctor ran right over to the broken robots. He heard the humans around him comforting each other. Katelyn still did not come over. 

“What is it? What were they?” Lance said. The Doctor scanned a robot head. Oh. Now that was interesting.

“Just stop wittering,” Donna said, probably to Lance. “Just help them.”

“Look at that.” The Doctor tilted the head toward Donna. “Remote control for the decorations, but there's a second remote control for the robots. They're not scavengers anymore. I think someone's taken possession.”

“Never mind all that,” Donna said. “You’re a doctor. People have been hurt.”

“Nah, they wanted you alive,” the Doctor said. “Look.” He tossed one of the baubles to Donna. “They're not active now.”

“All the same, you could help.”

“Gotta think of the bigger-” The Doctor’s voice shut off when Katelyn walked to stand in front of him. Her clenched fist was glowing slightly with the light of nanogenes, and she was glaring. That barely contained rage hadn’t been pointed at him in a while, and he had not missed it. “...picture.”

“I’m staying here until I have healed every injury down to a splinter.” Katelyn’s tone left no room for argument, but the thought of letting her out of his sight so soon after-

“Katelyn…” He started. A little girl came running over, holding her arm and sniffing. The Doctor watched Katelyn’s glare vanish instantly as she kneeled down to help the child, cooing to her quietly and letting the nanogenes swirl around what looked like a nasty bruise.

Oh. This was how Katelyn mourned, the Doctor realized. No matter what she said, and no matter how he or Rose had tried to convince her, Katelyn would blame herself for everything that happened at Canary Wharf. And the only way she was going to recover, the only way she’d forgive herself, was if she could convince herself she’d made up for it.

Which meant…. Blimey, it meant a lot of things, but right now what it meant was she wasn’t going to come with him.

Katelyn kissed the little girl’s hand, then, still kneeling, turned to the Doctor. She grabbed his left hand in both of hers. “I get it, but I’ll be safe here. They don’t want me.” 

ARGH! She was just-

She was right, of course.

“I’ll come back, soon as I’ve got the TARDIS again,” the Doctor told her. Katelyn nodded. Hopefully, that meant she wouldn’t follow him or wander off or something else equally horrible. Without really thinking about it, the Doctor pressed a kiss to her forehead, then turned and ran.

He ran out to the little roundabout in front of the reception hall, scanning the robo-head and trying to the extremely faint signal. Donna had run out after him, which was good. Not just so he could keep an eye on her, but also so he had someone to explain to.

“There's someone behind this, directing the roboforms.”

“But why is it me?” Donna asked. “What have I done?”

Well, the Doctor had some theories, but - “If we find the controller, we'll find that out,” he said. “Ooo!” He looked up. “It's up there. Something in the sky.”

A few ambulances arrived. The Doctor gave a split second thought to trying to convince Katelyn to come with him again. Then-

“I've lost the signal,” he said. No time to go back to Katelyn now. “Donna, we've got to get to your office. HC Clements. I think that's where it all started.” Oh, and her fiance was standing next to her. “Lance! Is it Lance? Lance, can you give me a lift?”

<...>

For the first time that day, the Doctor was glad Donna had decided to get married on Christmas Eve. The entirety of HC Clements appeared to be off for Christmas holiday, and that made his job much, much easier. “To you lot this might just be a locksmiths-” The Doctor vaulted a desk and ran over to one of the computers. “-but H C Clements was brought up twenty-three years ago by the Torchwood Institute.”

“Who are they?” Donna asked. The Doctor stopped typing. No, of course, the general public didn’t know. That wasn’t the kind of thing that would be allowed to get out. Especially if UNIT had gotten there first. 

“They were behind the Battle of Canary Wharf.” Donna still looked confused. “Cyberman invasion.” She tilted her head. “Skies over London full of Daleks?”

“Oh, I was in Spain,” Donna said, like that explained everything.

“They had Cybermen in Spain,” the Doctor said.

“Scuba diving,” Donna added. He stared at her, blinking.

“That big picture, Donna. You keep on missing it.” The computer he was using was a personal one. Not useful, so he ran to another one. “Torchwood was destroyed, but HC Clements stayed in business. I think someone else came in and-” The computer screen whited out, so the Doctor hit it. “-took over the operation. 

“But what do they want with me?” Donna demanded.

The Doctor stopped typing. Oh, he hated this part. Katelyn had done it the last few times. She was much better at it. “Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy,” the Doctor explained, forcing himself to meet Donna’s eyes. “And that's a problem, because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark Times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS” Donna put her hand on her stomach. “See? That's what happened. 

“Say, that's the TARDIS.”The Doctor picked up a coffee mug. “And that's you.” He picked up a pencil. “The particles inside you activated.” He shook the pencil. “The two sets of particles magnetised and whap.” He dropped the pencil in the mug. “You were pulled inside the TARDIS.” 

Donna looked… deeply uncomfortable. “I'm a pencil inside a mug?”

“Yes, you are. 4H. Sums you up.” The Doctor walked over to another computer, and decided he didn’t have time to try and hack this one. Sonic it was. “Lance? What was HC Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?”

“I don't know, I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager,” he said. “Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?”

“They make keys, that's the point. And look at this.” Finally, the building schematics popped up. “We're on the third floor. Underneath reception, there's a basement, yes?” Lance nodded. The Doctor ran over to the lifts, Donna and Lance followed. “Then how come when you look on the lift, there's a button marked lower basement?” He pointed to the button “There's a whole floor which doesn't exist on the official plans. So what's down there, then?”

“Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?” Lance asked.

“No, I'm showing you this building's got a secret floor.”

“It needs a key,” Donna pointed out.

“I don't.” A quick sonic and all he needed to do was press the ‘close doors’ button. “Right then. Thanks, you two. I can handle this. See you later.”

“No chance, Martian.” Donna marched right in next to him. “You're the man who keeps saving my life. I ain't letting you out of my sight.”

“Going down.”

“Lance?” He was still standing outside the lift, shifting and looking very ready to run the other direction.

“Maybe I should go to the police,” he offered.

“Inside,” Donna snapped. The Doctor’s eyes widened. Lance stepped in. He understood, of  
course. Blimey, could Rose sound like her mother when she wanted to.

“To honour and obey?” he muttered.

“Tell me about it, mate,” Lance sighed.

“Oi!”

<...>

The lower basement was… unpleasant. An eerie green, cold and damp. 

“Where are we? Well, what goes on down here?” Donna asked.

The Doctor looked down the hall both ways. “Let's find out.”

“Do you think Mister Clements knows about this place?” Donna asked.

“The mysterious HC Clements? I think he's part of it. Oh, look. Transport.”

There were three of those weird two wheel electric stand up scooters that he could not fathom humanity inventing. They were… well they got the job done, the Doctor supposed. Donna seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, cracking up about a minute in. The Doctor fought not to join her, and failed. 

The Doctor stopped at a bulkhead door labelled ‘Torchwood: Authorised personnel only’. That seemed like exactly the kind of place he should break into. He turned the wheel on the door and opened it to reveal a ladder that went waaaaaay up. 

“Wait here,” he said to the humans. “Just need to get my bearings. Don't-” He pointed to them. “-do anything.” 

“You'd better come back,” Donna said.

The Doctor smiled. Donna and Katelyn were so alike. And just like with Katelyn… “I couldn't get rid of you if I tried.”

The Doctor climbed the later two rungs at a time, up to another sealed cover operated by a wheel. He really hoped there wasn’t a lot of water on the other side of that door. He opened it and climbed out onto the top of number 8 in the Thames Barrier. Well, that wasn’t quite what water he’d been worried about.

“Thames flood barrier right on top of us,” the Doctor said as soon as he was ground level with the humans again. “Torchwood snuck in and built this place underneath.”

“What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark? 

The Doctor could have laughed. “Oh, I know. Unheard of.”

Just a few more feet down the corridor, there was a lab. It was… he’d say almost 60 square meters of bubbling tubes and other scenery things. “Oo, look at this. Stunning!”

“What does it do?” Donna asked.

“Particle extrusion,” the Doctor explained. “Hold on.” The Doctor tapped one of the glass tubes. Alright, now he was impressed. “Brilliant. They've been manufacturing Huon particles.” Poking something dangerous with little to no consideration for the consequences. “Course, my people got rid of Huons. They unravel the atomic structure.” The Doctor ducked under the tubes to get a look at the mechanics. A bit crude, but they were certainly going to do their job.

“Your people?” Lance asked. “Who are they? What company do you represent?”

“Oh, I'm a freelancer,” the Doctor said, standing again. “But this lot are rebuilding them. They've been using the river. Extruding them through a flat hydrogen base so they've got the end result.” The Doctor picked up an extraction tube, half filled. “Huon particles in liquid form.”

“And that's what's inside me?” Donna asked. The Doctor turned a knob on top of the container, activating that particle. The liquid glowed gold. And so did Donna. “Oh, my God!”

“Genius,” the Doctor hated to admit. “Because the particles are inert, they need something living to catalyse inside and that's you. Saturate the body and then.” Wait, but- “Ha!”

The Doctor jumped backwards. Donna startled. “The wedding! Yes, you're getting married, that's it! Best day of your life, walking down the aisle. Oh, your body's a battleground!” He started gesturing wildly. If Katelyn were there, she would have yelled at him. “There's a chemical war inside!” Adrenaline, acetylcholine. Wham! go the endorphins. Oh, you're cooking! Yeah, you're like a walking oven. A pressure cooker, a microwave, all churning away. The particles reach boiling point. Shazam!”

Donna slapped the Doctor again. 

He spun back, bewildered. “What did I do this time??”

“Are you enjoying this?” she snapped. The Doctor deflated. Oh, yeah he had been just a bit. That was… that wasn’t ok. “Right, just tell me. These particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said instantly. 

“Doctor, if your lot got rid of Huon particles, why did they do that?” Donna asked. Right. That was a fair question. She wasn’t going to let him not answer.

“Because they were deadly,” he admitted.

Donna looked like she might faint. “Oh, my God.”

“I'll sort it out, Donna,” the Doctor promised. “Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I am not about to lose someone else.”

There was a crackling sound, and a hissing, spitting voice spoke. “Oh, she is long since lost.” A door that the Doctor had been certain was a wall slid up to reveal a tiered hole descending into the earth. “I have waited so long,” the voice continued. “Hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!”

The room on the other side of the door was a mess of scaffolding and industrial equipment. Oh, and the giant, extremely deep hole that took up most of the floor in the room. And the black robed robots standing on the scaffolding. With guns. Probably also worth mentioning.

The Doctor stepped forward, looking down the hole. The Robot’s guns followed him. They did not follow Donna. “Someone's been digging.” And the sides of that hole were very clean. “Oh, very Torchwood. Drilled by laser. How far down does it go?”

“Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!” the voice hissed.

“Really?” the Doctor asked. “Seriously? What for?”

Donna stepped closer. “Dinosaurs.”

“What?”

“Dinosaurs?” Donna didn’t sound as sure the second time.

“What are you on about, dinosaurs?”

“That film, Under the Earth, with dinosaurs,” Donna said. “Trying to help.”

“That's not helping.”

“Such a sweet couple,” the voice hissed. The Doctor could feel Katelyn’s hypothetical scowl all the way from the timeline where she came with him. That cheered him up just a tiny bit.

“Only a madman talks to thin air and trust me, you don't want to make me mad,” the Doctor growled. “Where are you?”

“High in the sky. Floating so high on Christmas night,” the voice said.

“I didn't come all this way to talk on the intercom,” the Doctor shouted into the room. “Come on, let's have a look at you!” 

“Who are you with such command?”

“I'm the Doctor.”

“Prepare your best medicines, doctor man-” Ah, well, no. Not that kind of doctor- “-for you will be sick at heart.”

There was a flash of blue light, and then something impossible was standing in front of him. Something he’d only ever seen in Academy textbooks, hundreds of years and nine bodies ago, hiss and snarling right in front of him.

“Racnoss?” the Doctor whispered. “But that's impossible. You're one of the Racnoss?”

“Empress of the Racnoss,” she corrected.

“If you're the Empress, where's the rest of the Racnoss?” the Doctor asked. “Or, are you the only one?”

“Such a sharp mind,” the Empress hissed.

“That's it, the last of your kind.” He’d know that look anywhere. “The Racnoss come from the Dark Times, billions of years ago,” he explained to Donna. “Billions. They were carnivores, omnivores. They devoured whole planets.”

“Racnoss are born starving,” the Empress snarled. “Is that our fault?” 

No, the Doctor thought. But your choice of meal is.

“They eat people?” Donna asked, horrified.

“HC Clements, did he wear those, those um, black and white shoes?” the Doctor asked.

“He did,” Donna cheered. “We used to laugh. We used to call him the fat cat in spats. The Doctor pointed to a pair of feet sticking out of the web across the ceiling, wearing black and white shoes. Donna did a double take. “Oh, my God!”

“Mmm. My Christmas dinner,” the Empress laughed.

“You shouldn't even exist,” the Doctor said. Not in this time or place, at least. “Way back in history, the fledgling Empires went to war against the Racnoss. They were wiped out.” 

“Except for me,” the Empress snarled.

“But that's what I've got inside me, that Huon energy thing,” Donna said. The Doctor blinked. That was a bit of a shift. “Oi! Look at me, lady, I'm talking. Where do I fit in?” Oh, distraction. Because Lance was walking up behind the Racnoss with an axe. This was one of the rare times the Doctor really hoped he was wrong. “How comes I get all stacked up with these Huon particles? Look at me, you! Look me in the eye and tell me.”

“The bride is so feisty.” The Empress seemed amused.

“Yes, I am!” Donna agreed. “And I don't know what you are, you big thing, but a spider's just a spider and an axe is an axe! Now, do it!”

Lance raised the axe. The Empress turns and hisses at him. Then, Lance laughed, lowering the axe. The Empress joined. Sometimes the Doctor hated being right.

“That was a good one,” Lance laughed. “Your face.”

“Lance is funny,” the Empress told them.

Donna looked like her confusion was the only thing blocking her grief. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said quietly.

“Sorry for what?” Donna demanded. “Lance, don't be so stupid! Get her!”

“God, she's thick,” Lance nearly snarled. Donna’s shoulders slumped. “Months I've had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map.”

Donna opened and closed her mouth for a second. “I don't understand.” She clearly did, at least a little.

“How did you meet him?” the Doctor said, hating every word that came out of his mouth.

“In the office,” Donna said.

“He made you coffee.”

“What?” 

“Every day, I made you coffee,” Lance repeated. He and the Empress shared a smile.

“You had to be dosed with liquid particles over six months,” the Doctor told Donna.

“He was poisoning me,” Donna realized.

“It was all there in the job title,” the Doctor said, turning to the Empress and Lance. “The Head of Human Resources.”

“This time, it's personnel,” Lance joked. He and the Empress shared another laugh. 

“But, we were getting married,” Donna said. The Doctor closed his eyes. What he wouldn’t give for Katelyn to be here right now, screaming her anger instead of Donna’s quiet heartbreak.

“Well, I couldn't risk you running off. I had to say yes,” Lance said. “And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavour Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap yap yap. Oh, Brad and Angelina. Is Posh pregnant? X Factor, Atkins Diet, Feng Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me. Dear God, the never ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia.” The Doctor looked down at his shoes. He couldn’t look at Donna right now. Not when her heartbreak was so close to his own. Why this? Why today? “I deserve a medal.”

“Oh, is that what she's offered you?” the Doctor snapped. “The Empress of the Racnoss? What are you, her consort?”

“It's better than a night with her,” Lance sneered, pointing at Donna.

“But I love you,” Donna said.

Lance looked at Donna the way someone looked at a child who had just learned animals also died. “That's what made it easy. It's like you said, Doctor. The big picture.” The Doctor glared at Lance. “What's the point of it all if the human race is nothing? That's what the Empress can give me. The chance to go out there. To see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don't you, Doctor?”

“Who is this little physician?” the Empress asked.

“She said Martian,” Lance said.

The Doctor pictured the Ice Warriors of Mars and almost laughed. “Oh, I'm sort of… homeless,” he said. “But the point is, what's down here? The Racnoss are extinct. What's going to help you four thousand miles down? That's just the molten core of the Earth, isn't it?”

Lance gave his that same look. The Doctor scowled. “I think he wants us to talk,” Lance said.

“I think so, too,” the Empress said.

“Well, tough!” Lance shouted. “All we need is Donna.”

“Kill this chattering little doctor man,” the Empress commanded. 

“Don't you hurt him!” Donna shouted, pushing him behind her. The Doctor stepped around her arm.

“No, no, Donna He reached as subtly as he could into his pocket. “It's all right.”

“No, I won't let them.”

“At arms!” the Empress shouted. The robots lifted their rather large guns. 

“Ah, now. Except-” the Doctor tried.

“Take aim!” The robots spun toward him.

“Well, I just want to point out the obvious-”

“They won't hit the bride,” the Empress assured. “They're such very good shots.”

“J- ju-just, just, just hold on,” the Doctor rambled. “Hold on just a tick. Just a tiny little, just a little tick. If you think about it, the particles activated in Donna and drew her inside my spaceship.” He pulled the extraction tube out of his pocket. “So reverse it, and the spaceship comes to her.” He turned the knob. Donna started glowing again.

The Empress shouted “Fire!”, but the TARDIS walls were already around them.

“Off we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this??? A chapter on time!!!


	6. Mourning

I sat on the edge of a fountain off to the side of the reception hall entrance, dragging the tips of my fingers through the water and watching the ripples. The ambulances had arrived about 15 minutes ago, which was my cue to get the fuck out of the area. I was an experienced enough Time Traveler to know I should get the spectacular future tech  _ away  _ from any authority. And the nanogenes were dead anyway, not much I could do after that.

What was I  _ thinking,  _ staying here? I mean, sure, there were people that needed healing. Some pretty badly. I didn’t regret staying, but… but right now helping the Doctor,  _ staying with the Doctor,  _ was my job. He needed someone, and I was the only one who knew enough to help. And I’d just told him to go? 

I smacked the water in the fountain and watched the gentle ripples turn into tiny waves. Oh, who was I kidding. I would have felt guilty either way. At least here, I got to help some kids. Donna could keep him from crashing down for half an hour. Probably without even trying.

I started guilting myself around in a circle, probably could have done it forever, except I was interrupted by the wheezing-groaning of the TARDIS landing a few feet away. I was off the fountain and in the door as soon as she landed, and the Doctor took back off as soon as the doors were sealed behind me.

Donna was sitting on the jumpseat, staring down at the grating and looking as broken as the Doctor had a few hours ago. I stepped toward her.

“Donna, do you know what we said before about time machines?” the Doctor asked. Donna didn’t react. “Well, we lied. And now we're going to use it. We need to find out what the Empress of the Racnoss is digging up.” I walked over to Donna and put my hand on her arm. She barely reacted to that too. “If something's buried at the planet's core, it must've been there since the beginning,” the Doctor continued. “That's just brilliant. Molto bene. I've always wanted to see this. Donna, Katelyn, we're going further back than I've ever been before.”

Donna started shaking, so I didn’t wait for her to react. I pulled her into a hug and pressed her head into my shoulder (a bit hard considering she was sitting and I had to do an awkward crouch). Donna cried silently, soaking the part of my shirt that had only recently dried from the Doctor’s tears. 

I met the Doctor’s eyes over Donna shoulder. He opened his mouth, maybe to explain, but I shook my head. I knew already. He nodded, and went back to piloting. 

After a few moments, the Doctor gave me an apologetic look. “We've arrived,” he said quietly. Donna took a shuddering breath and pulled away from me. “Want to see?”

“I suppose.” She didn’t sound sure. The Doctor pulled the scanner around and frowned.

“Nah, the scanner’s too small,” I said, walking toward the door. “Let’s do it Donna’s way.” The Doctor came over, but Donna stayed where I’d left her. The Doctor and I exchanged a look.

“Come on,” he said gently. “No human's ever seen this. You'll be the first.”

“All I want to see is my bed,” Donna muttered, but she came over slowly anyway. We smiled, encouraging, and stepped back from the door slightly.

“Donna Noble-” I started, grabbing one of the doors.

“-Welcome to the creation of the Earth,” the Doctor finished. 

We pulled the doors open and stared out. The view outside the doors was all dust and asteroids and nebulas. It was… it was so  _ new.  _ We traveled a lot, the Doctor and I. We’d seen a lot, far and wide and fully developed. But this was… this was primordial. This was untouched. There were so many possibilities. 

Was this what it felt like to be a Time Lord? To see all of this all the time? To  _ know? _

“We've gone back four point six billion years,” the Doctor said quietly. He was just as awestruck as Donna and I. “There's no solar system, not yet. Only dust and rocks and gas. That's the Sun, over there.” The Doctor pointed to a bright spot, barely visible behind the clouds of space dust . “Brand new. Just beginning to burn.”

“W-Where's the Earth?” Donna asked.

“All around us,” the Doctor said quietly.

“In the dust,” I added. Part of me wanted to reach out, to try and touch it. To hold it and cradle it like one might hold a newborn. 

But this world was so new it was as  _ fragile  _ as a newborn too _.  _ I didn’t want to break it.

“Puts the wedding in perspective,” Donna whispered, still staring into the dust. “Lance was right. We're just… tiny.”

“If there’s one thing traveling with the Doctor has taught me, it’s that no one is tiny,” I said, turning to Donna. “Not really.”

“The human race makes sense out of chaos,” the Doctor said, smiling. “Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful, but only if it's being observed.”

“And how are you supposed to observe it if you’re inside it?”

“So I came out of all this?” Donna whispered.

“We are all stardust,” I whispered.

“Isn't that brilliant?” the Doctor agreed.

A large rock drifted past. “I think that's the Isle of Wight,” Donna joked. We all laughed.

“Eventually, gravity takes hold,” the Doctor explained. “Say, one big rock, heavier than the others, starts to pull other rocks towards it. All the dust and gas and elements get pulled in. Everything, piling in until you get-”

“The Earth,” Donna breathed.

“I mean, there was that thing with Theia-”

“Right, but we’re here for one reason,” the Doctor said. “What was that first rock?”

Because the universe sometimes worked like this was still a TV show, a seven pointed star-shaped spaceship came out of a dust cloud. Donna pointed to it. “Look.”

“The Racnoss,” the Doctor hissed. “Hold on.” He ran over to the console, and did… something that sped up our perception of time. “The Racnoss are hiding from the war. What's it doing?”

The rocks and dust drew toward the spaceship. “Exactly what you said,” Donna said. The Doctor ran back over.

“Oh,” he said. “They didn't just bury something at the centre of the Earth. They became the centre of the Earth. The first rock.”

I opened my mouth to ask for clarification about the fact that the center of the Earth was like  _ really  _ hot, when the TARDIS shook hard enough that I almost fell out.

“What was that?” Donna asked.

“Trouble,” we said. I slammed the doors closed, while the Doctor ran back to the console. The TARDIS shook violently around us. I directed Donna to hold on tight to the console, which meant I didn’t have a grip when the TARDIS threw me fully into one of the coral struts. She buzzed sorry, but beside what was gonna be a nasty bruise on my back, I was fine.

“What the hell's it doing?” Donna screamed.

The Doctor got thrown to the ground, but used the momentum to launch himself back to the console. “Remember that little trick of mine, particles pulling particles?” the Doctor asked. “Well, it works in reverse. They're pulling us back!”

“Well, can't you stop it?” Donna shouted. “Hasn't it got a handbrake? Can't you reverse or warp or beam or something?”

“Alas, this is not Star Trek-”

“Oh! Wait a minute!” The Doctor dug under the console and popped back up with- “The extrapolator!”

“You still have that?” I shouted, trying to climb my way back to the central console.

“Why get rid of a tool when you can still use it?” the Doctor said, managing to plug the extrapolator into the console even with us being thrown around. “It can't stop us, but it should give us a good bump!” The TARDIS groaned like it was materializing. The Doctor waited for a second, then shouted “Now!” and whacked the extrapolation with a mallet. The TARDIS shook hard, then thunked her landing.

The Doctor ran out and, after we shared a look, Donna and I ran after him. “We're about two hundred yards to the right. Come on!”

The Doctor skidded to a stop in front of a door with the Torchwood logo on it and pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket.

“But what do we do?” Donna asked, looking back and forth between the Doctor and I.

“I don't know. We make it up as we go along,” the Doctor said, pressing the end of the stethoscope to the door. He was taking the ‘doctor’ title a bit literally today. “But trust me, I've got a history.”

Donna shook her head. “But I still don't understand. I'm full of particles, but what for?”

“There's a Racnoss web at the centre of the Earth-” the Doctor explained, like Donna and I hadn’t been there to see that. “-but my people unravelled their power source. The Huon particles ceased to exist but the Racnoss were stuck.”

“The door was locked, and the Time Lord’s destroyed the key?” I said, because I was just realizing I’d always watched this for the banter and only vaguely paid attention to the plot. 

“Exactly!” the Doctor cheered. “They've been stuck in hibernation for billions of years. Frozen, dead, kaput. So, Donna, you're the new key. Brand new particles, living particles! They need you to open it and you have never been so quiet.” 

We turned around, and Donna was gone. “Well, fuck.”

“Language,” the Doctor said, sonicing the door. 

“Language?” I cried. “That’s not even close to the-” The door swung open, and then there was one of those robots pointing a very large gun at us. “Worst… thing… I’ve… Am I allowed to swear now?”

<...>

The webs holding Donna were lucky her rage couldn’t produce proper flames, or they’d be toast. ‘Course, if these webs did burst into flames from Donna’s concentrated rage, she would fall into the gapping Journey-to-the-Center-of-the-Earth pit directly beneath her. The bottomless look of the pit was almost enough to scare the anger right out of Donna. 

She turned and glared at Lance next to her in the webs.  _ Almost. _ “I hate you.”

“Yeah, I think we've gone a bit beyond that now, sweetheart,” Lance sneered. God, what had Donna ever seen in him. 

“My golden couple, together at last,” the Racno… Racnoss? The Racnoss Empress hissed. Donna looked down at her and immediately regretted it. She was  _ not  _ nice to look at. “Your awful wedded life. Tell me, do you want to be released?”

“Yes!” Donna and Lance shouted in unison. Obviously, how thick was this spider?

“You're supposed to say,  _ I do,”  _ the Empress hissed.

“Huh. No chance,” Lance said. Donna glanced at him. After everything that had happened today, those two words shouldn’t still feel like a punch in the gut. But it did.

“Say it!” the Empress demand.

Lance looked at Donna with contempt. “I do.” Not a breath of it sounded sincere.

Donna just wanted this day to end. “I do.”

“I don't.” The Empress laughed. Stupid Martians, Donna thought. If they’d just paid a little more attention to her- 

Oh, she wasn’t getting out of this, was she? Now, Donna felt scared enough to be sick. “Activate the particles. Purge every last one,” the Empress ordered. Donna started to glow again, and felt the weird tingling feeling that went with it. She glanced over, and Lance glowed too.  _ Oh.  _ “And release!”

The Hugh-on particles shot straight down into the hole under her. “The secret heart unlocks, and they will waken from their Sleep of Ages,” the Empress screamed.

“Who will?” Donna was getting really tired of being confused. This emotional roller coaster was getting exhausting. “What's down there?”

“Ugh. How thick are you?” Lance spit, looking at Donna like she was completely stupid.

“My children, the long lost Racnoss, now reborn to feast on flesh!” Well, at least the horrifying ancient alien was willing to answer her questions. “The web star shall come to me.” Nothing seemed to happen, but in the pause Donna  _ just  _ thought she could see several tiny somethings crawling up the sides of the pit. “My babies will be hungry. They need sustenance. Perish the web.”

“Use her,” Lance shouted immediately. Donna looked at him in betrayal. “Not me! Use her!” Donna’s vision went blurry and her stomach felt like it was rebelling against the food she’d eaten at the reception.

“Oh, my funny little Lance!” the Empress sneered. “But you are quite impolite to your lady friend. The Empress does not approve.” She raised her blade-scythe-claw thingies and slashed the web on one side of Lance. He went tumbling down into the pit screaming. Donna screamed after him. “Harvest the humans! Reduce them to meat.” The Empress paused, then seemed satisfied. “My children are climbing towards me and none shall stop them. So you might as well unmask, my clever little doctor man.”

On a flight of stairs to the left, one of the robots paused and threw off its cloak. “Oh well. It’s what I get for not listening to Katelyn, I suppose.” He pulled that weird tube out of his pocket, and pointed it at the web. “I've got you, Donna!”

The web started to give way. “I'm going to fall!” Donna shrieked.

“You're going to swing!” the Doctor assured. One more web gave way, and Donna clung with a grip she wasn’t sure she had to the one thread of web that remained. She did swing, but she was screaming loud enough that she couldn’t hear what the Doctor was saying. 

About two seconds after she started swinging, Donna realized the strand of web was about six feet too long. She swung under the Doctor and right into Katelyn's arms instead. “Blimey,” Donna breathed. “I’m glad one of you can measure.” Katelyn actually laughed, which told Donna this was a normal day for her and the Doctor.  _ This was just a normal day? _

Donna and Katelyn steeped out from under the landing. “I got her,” Katelyn said. “We’re fine.”

“The Doctor man has a nurse,” the Empress sneered. Katelyn made an exaggerated gagging sound.

“Empress of the Racnoss, I give you one last chance,” the Doctor said. He looked completely, terrifyingly serious. “We can find you a planet. We can find you and your children a place in the universe to co-exist.” That sounded like a good deal to Donna, but based on the Doctor’s expression, he wasn’t expecting it to work. “Take that offer and end this now.”

“These men are so funny,” the Empress hissed.

“What's your answer?” the… well, Martians asked in unison.

“Oh! I'm afraid I have to decline.” The Empress started laughing again. Donna’s stomach sank. Next to her, Katelyn pinched her eyes closed and dropped her head.

“Then what happens next is your own doing,” the Doctor said darkly. Oh, and suddenly Donna wasn’t sure she was safe on either side of this conflict.

“I'll show you what happens next!” the Empress said. “At arms!” The Robots raised their guns. Donna had forgotten they had guns and startled a few steps back. “Take aim! And-”

“Relax,” the Doctor said. The robots slumped over. 

Donna stared for a second, then looked up at the Doctor. “What did you do?”

“Guess what I've got, Donna?” the Doctor asked cheerfully. He pulled the remote control from the reception. “Pockets.”

Donna blinked. “How did that fit in there?”

“They're bigger on the inside.”

“Roboforms are not necessary,” the Empress said, although, to Donna, she no longer sounded very sure of herself. “My children may feast on Martian flesh.”

“Oh, but I'm not from Mars,” the Doctor said, flipping so quickly back to deadly serious.

The Empress blinked. “Then where?”

“My home planet is far away and long since gone,” the Doctor said. “But its name lives on.  _ Gallifrey.” _

The Empress roared. “They  _ murdered _ the Racnoss!”

“I warned you,” the Doctor said. “You did this.” Donna watched him pull the baubles from the party out of his pocket.

“No! No!” the Empress screamed. “Don't! No!”

Donna turned to Katelyn, who was clearly refusing to look at the pit. “Katelyn-”

“Even monsters beg for their lives,” she whispered, sounding like she was trying to convince herself as much as Donna. 

Donna looked back to the Doctor in horror. He had thrown the baubles into the air and used the remote in his hands to direct them. Some disappeared around pipes and down hallways. Several surrounded the Empress, keeping her in place but never attacking. One landed fairly close. Donna had to duck away. 

She turned back just in time to watch a few manhole covers burst and put out some of the fires that had started. Water started flooding into the lair and down the hole. The Racnoss screamed, both the Empress and the young ones in the pit. Donna took several steps back and covered her mouth. 

“No! No! My children!” the Empress shouted. “My children!” 

This… was horrible. And the Doctor was just standing there, looking for all the world like he knew this was his fault and he wanted to make himself suffer by watching. And then there was Katelyn, standing frozen except she was trembling, eyes pinched shut, refusing to look, to know. 

They  _ were _ punishing themselves, Donna realized. They weren’t immune to the chaos they caused. They knew how horrifying this entire situation was. They could have left and never thought of the consequences. But they kept standing there, watching. No,  _ making themselves watch.  _ The Doctor just looked like he’d been doing it longer.

Donna walked over and grabbed Katelyn’s arm. She startled and looked over. Somehow Katelyn managed to look so young and so unknowably old at the same time. “C’mon,” Donna said, pulling Katelyn toward the stairs. “Doctor!” He looked over. “You can stop now.” He looked out over the pit while the Empress kept screaming for her children. Donna didn’t have time to think of the words to describe his expression, but it was enough to snap Katelyn back to the present. She stepped past Donna and forced her way up the stairs to the Doctor.

“Come on. Time we got out,” the Doctor said. Debris now cleared and soaked to the skin, the three ran out of the room. They ran back the way they’d come, all the way back to the ladder Donna had watched the Doctor climb. 

God, that felt like a lifetime ago.

The Doctor sent Donna up first, and Katelyn up second. “But what about the Empress?” Donna asked about half-way up.

“She's used up all her Huon energy,” the Doctor explained. “She's defenceless!” 

The Doctor’s words were proven completely true when Donna stuck her head out of the door at the top, and immediately had to pull it closed again to avoid being hit by the remnants of the Empress’s ship.

Eventually, the banging stopped, and Donna climbed out. She looked around, and started laughing, all the fear fleeing her body. They were on a flood barrier, and… and-

“There's one problem,” she managed to say.

“What is that?” the Doctor asked.

“We've drained the Thames,” Donna said, roaring with laughter.

Katelyn groaned and pointed an accusing finger at the Doctor. “I’m not feilding the angry call from UNIT this time.”

<...>

The Doctor took the TARDIS to Donna’s house, parking just across the street. We walked out, me with a towel. The Doctor had moved the TARDIS before flooding the Torchwood built underground, but he hadn’t moved her quite far enough. 

“She’s fine, Katelyn,” the Doctor said. 

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You dried off,” I muttered. I then ignored the fondly exasperated look I was sure the Doctor gave me when I realized any water on her would have gotten boiled off in the Vortex.

“She’s fine,” the Doctor repeated. “Survive anything, her.”

“More than I've done,” Donna muttered. The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and gave an unimpressed Donna one last scan.

“No, all the Huon particles have gone,” the Doctor said. “No damage, you're fine.”

“Yeah,” Donna started. “but apart from that, I missed my wedding, lost my job and became a widow on the same day. Sort of.”

“We couldn't save him,” the Doctor said. I dropped my head, but he was right. He was  _ right.  _ We needed, I needed, to accept that.

Donna took a deep breath “He deserved it,” she said, voice full of conviction. The Doctor and I blinked. Donna deflated. “No, he didn't.” She looked over her shoulder. “I'd better get inside. They'll be worried.”

“Best Christmas present they could have,” the Doctor said. “Oh, no. I forgot you hate Christmas.”

“Yes, I do,” Donna agreed.

“Even if it snows?” the Doctor asked. He reached in the door and pressed the space behind the top panel. The lamp on top of the TARDIS turned yellow and shot off a bolt of energy that exploded like a firework. It instantly started snowing.

“I can't believe you did that!” Donna laughed. I giggled and tried to catch some of the snowflakes on my tongue. Maybe it wasn’t  _ real _ snow again, but at least it was closer this time, and I needed some childhood joy right now.

“Oh, basic atmospheric excitation,” the Doctor dismissed, a huge smile on his face.

“Merry Christmas,” Donna said.

“And you,” the Doctor said at the same time I said “Merry Christmas.”

“So, what will you do with yourself now?” the Doctor asked. I held my breath for a second. I knew the real question he was asking.

“Not getting married, for starters,” Donna sighed. “And I'm not going to temp anymore. I don't know. Travel. See a bit more of planet Earth. Walk in the stardust.” I smiled. “Just go out there and do something.”

“Well, you could always-” The Doctor cut himself off and glanced at me. I nodded, as if my permission really mattered for who got invited onto the TARDIS.

“What?” Donna said.

“Come with us,” we offered.

Donna smiled slightly. “No.” I mirrored her smile. Even if I didn’t know that was going to happen, I would have suspected. Not many people saw the Doctor at his worst and then wanted to see more of him.

“Okay,” the Doctor said. I rested my hand on his arm.

“I can't,” Donna said.

“No, that's fine.”

“No, but really.” Donna laughed nervously. “Everything we did today. Do you live your life like that?”

“Not all the time,” we said. After all,  _ trouble’s just the bits in between. _

“I think you do,” Donna said. “And I couldn't.”

“But you've seen it out there,” the Doctor tried. “It's beautiful.”

“And it's  _ terrible _ ,” Donna countered. “That place was flooding and burning and they were dying, and you stood there like, I don't know, strangers. And then you made it snow. I mean, you scare me to death.”

“Right.”

“Tell you what I will do, though,” Donna said. “Christmas dinner.” The Doctor almost looked scared, every muscle in his body tensing, ready to run. “Oh, come on.”

“I don't do that sort of thing,” the Doctor said instantly.  _ I did, _ I thought to myself,  _ once upon a time. _ A younger Katelyn would have stayed with Donna. 

But this Kateyln, the version of me I was today, knew the Doctor would never stay. And he needed me right now much more than I needed a Christmas dinner. Especially with strangers.

“You did it last year,” Donna said. “You both did. You said so. And you might as well, because Mum always cooks enough for twenty.”

The Doctor made a bunch of noises that suggested he wanted to speak before sighing. “Oh, all right then,” he said. I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he really thought Donna was that stupid. “But you go first. Better warn them. And don't say we’re Martians. I just have to park her properly. She might drift off to the Middle Ages.” He pushed me in the doors before him. “We’ll see you in a minute.”

The Doctor closed the doors behind us, and got about two steps into the dematerialization process before we could hear Donna shouting for us outside. He sighed and I gave him a look. We cracked the door open and peaked out.

“Blimey, you can shout,” the Doctor said.

“It’s an important skill,” I agreed. “You should keep honing it.”

Donna gave us a fond and knowing smile. “Am I ever going to see you again?”

“If we’re lucky,” the Doctor said.

“Or if I have anything to say about it,” I added.

“Just promise me one thing,” Donna said. “Both of you. Find someone.”

_ We had someone,  _ I thought.  _ We both did. We both lost her. We can’t go through that again. Not yet. _

“I’ve got Katelyn,” the Doctor said. I smiled nervously.

“No,” Donna said. “You two are too much alike. And sometimes, I think you - both of you- need someone to stop you.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor said quietly. “Thanks then, Donna. Good luck. And just… be magnificent.”

“Not that you’ll need to but in much effort,” I said.

Donna chuckled. “I think I will, yeah.” We stepped back inside. “Doctor?”

He rolled his eyes and stuck his head out of the door again. “Oh, what is it now?”

“That friend of yours,” Donna said. “What was her name?”

“Her name was Rose,” the Doctor managed, voice shuddering the way it did when he was holding back tears. He shut the door and leaned back on it, hands over his face and trembling.

“Hey,” I said, trying to gently pull his hands away from his face. “C’mon, let’s take off first. Then we can both break down and stare at space for a bit.” The Doctor chuckled a watery laugh and made his way to the console to take off.

<...>

A few hours later, they were doing exactly that. The Doctor had found a nice spot in the crab nebula to just sit and watch the universe keep turning without their help. Well, they were trying to look, but both had blurry vision on account of all the crying. 

“Donna was probably right,” the Doctor said after 47 minutes of perfect silence. “Right now, we only have each other-”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Katelyn sniffled. “We have the TARDIS too.”

They both closed their eyes as the TARDIS washed over them with a wave of her protective love. However, the note of sorrow in her tone neither escaped nor surprised the Doctor. She had lost Rose too after all.

“You were pretty brilliant with the old girl today,” the Doctor said after a moment. Katelyn shrugged, not a dismissive or embarrassed gesture, but one of true nonchalance.

“I pulled a lever when you told me to. Hardly something you’ve never seen before, Doctor.”

The Doctor deflated a bit and tried not to show it. He shouldn’t have bothered really. Katelyn had always been able to see right through this him, just as she did now.

Katelyn smirked. “Fishin’ for help with repairs there, Doc?” she said. The Doctor perked back up that at her cheek.

“Could be. But, well, in order to repair a TARDIS, you’d really have to know how to fly her first.” Katelyn’s face lit up instantly, an ecstatic and unbelieving smile splitting her face. He could see her desire to banter some more, but that’s not what came out of her mouth.

“Really?” she breathed. The Doctor smiled back, recalling a similarly unsure point in both their lives, when she had asked that same question.

“Well,” he drawled. “If you’re interested, that is.”

Katelyn was up like a shot, already standing at the console by the time he’d gotten to his feet. She circled the console a few times, practically radiating what the Doctor could only describe as giddiness. Sometimes she was so childlike. 

He stood up and followed. “Before we begin, any questions?”

“Just the one.” Katelyn gestured to the console. “How many of these controls don’t translate to a human language?”

The Doctor blinked. “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Um, several, actually… uh.”

Katelyn laughed, a genuine, loud, laugh that made the Doctor laugh too. And  _ Rassilon,  _ did that feel good. “Just make up a different sound for each one,” Katelyn suggested.

“Brilliant. Yes. Right.” He paced around the console a bit, unsure where to start. Sure, he’d… dabbled in teaching people how to fly the TARDIS, but those had mostly been spur of the moment necessities or simply answering their unending questions. Well, that was a start, he supposed. Katelyn  _ was  _ very observant. “What do you know?”

<...>

The Doctor lifted his head from under the grating at the sound of footsteps pattering into the console room. A meer 30 minutes of lessons had seen Katelyn nearly half-unconscious on the console. The Doctor had told her she might as well get some sleep if she wasn’t going to retain anything he was teaching her. Apparently, she wasn’t going to get any sleep either.

Katelyn walked in, bare foot, blanket pulled over her shoulders like a cloak. The Doctor allowed himself a moment to note that, unlike all the times this had happened in his last body, Katelyn had probably been aiming for the console room this time.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he guessed. 

“Tried,” she croaked. “Couldn’t relax enough.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” the Doctor asked, not entirely sure what he meant by ‘it’. Katelyn settled into a more comfortable position.

“I just didn’t want to be alone,” Katelyn said.

The Doctor understood. He hadn’t really wanted to be alone either.

Katelyn sat down on the jumpseat and rewrapped herself in her blanket. The Doctor watched her settle, rearrange, resettle, rearrange, and then give up with a huff. She sat up on the seat, wrapped the blanket so that only the top of her head and her bare feet stuck out, and glared.

“Comfortable?” the Doctor teased. Katelyn extracted a hand from her bundle and flipped him off. He laughed. “Let me finish and we can move.” 

“The Library?” Katelyn suggested. 

“Sure.” The Doctor sonicked the panel he’d been working on back into place, jumped up out of the floor, and placed the grating back down. Katelyn rose slowly to her feet, wincing when they met the cold metal of the console room floor. They walked together, in silence, to the Library. It had changed a little, since Canary Wharf. One less couch. Neither of them mentioned it. 

Katelyn walked over to the couch she’d always vehemently claimed was hers and collapsed down onto it. She shifted around a bit, then raised her hands and tried to sign.

“You haven’t taught me one yet.”

“Pillow,” was all Katelyn mumbled. The Doctor turned around to find a pillow had appeared on his usual chair. He got it and gave it to Katelyn, who promptly shoved it under her head without finesse. “Thank you,” she said. She kissed her hand and wiggled her fingers toward the ceiling. “Thank you, too.” The TARDIS hummed happily back.

The Doctor smiled fondly. How had he ever feared this person? No companion he’d ever had had treated the TARDIS like this. Not even Romana, who certainly knew the old girl was sentient, and simply didn’t like her temperament. There was a reason the Type-40s had been… retired.

The TARDIS sang her own fondness for Katelyn, but reminded the Doctor, gently, that another companion had treated her like this, so very long ago it was almost the beginning. 

The Doctor’s smile faltered. It was not the first time he’d thought about how much Katelyn Laurin reminded him of his granddaughter. No, the first time was on New Earth, when he’d marveled at the strength of her telepathy. The only being (Time Lord or otherwise) who’d ever been close to that strength had been Susan and… 

He didn’t want to think about them. 

A few dark nights, he’d let himself wonder if Katelyn  _ was  _ Susan, somehow. If Susan had escaped the War by hiding on Earth as a human. It sounded like something she’d do. She’d loved humans long before he had. But there were too many holes in that theory. Not the least being the Doctor was sure his granddaughter would have told him if she’d come up with that plan. 

Maybe there was something to all those times he’d claimed Katelyn Laurin as his family.

Something more than the Time Lord Reborn. Well, more accurately, something tied to it. Because even if it wasn’t  _ biologically  _ true, even if she didn’t have the extra senses or the second heart, she carried the burden, she carried the knowledge of a Time Lord.

Sometimes, it got to the point where, if he didn’t have certifiable proof she was from another universe, he’d have looked for a fob watch or equivalent on her somewhere. Surely he’d have noticed by now, if that were the case.

Or, more accurately, Rose would have noticed. She’d always been more observant than him, right the beginning. Not that she would have understood or told him. That was his fault. He should have told her, should have told her everything.

It was too late now.

He’d never see Rose Tyler again.

She was gone.

Forever.

<...>

I drifted up to consciousness slowly, both too comfortable and too sad to really want to face the day. I reached out without opening my eyes, and wasn’t really surprised to feel the Doctor just a few feet away. I hoped I could help him through this, but somehow even knowing we’d get Rose back wasn’t helping me. Paradoxically, her absence was everywhere.

I probably laid there for another half an hour before my stomach convinced my brain it was time to get up. I looked toward the Doctor, and was greeted with the rare sight of him sleeping. I smiled sadly. God only knew he deserved some rest.

The TARDIS tried to bring the lights up for me, but I told her to keep them down, choosing to fumble my way out of the Library in favor of giving the Doctor a few more moments of peace.

I didn’t really have the energy to make anything fancy, so I just poured a bowl of cereal and ate in silence. I baked some plain sugar cookies and scrubbed the kitchen spotless while they cooled.

By the end of that, I figured the Doctor must be awake, so I made him some toast, grabbed a few of the cookies, and went back to the Library. I couldn’t tell if he was actually awake, considering he hadn’t moved a millimeter. That was both unusual and concerning, but for all I knew, he’d fallen asleep right before I woke up.

I left the food on the table in front of him with a note and went to… do literally anything. I cleaned my room, even though there wasn’t anything to clean. I watched a movie. I went back to my room and read a book. The TARDIS, bless her, kept trying to direct me to rooms I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t really want to have fun though. 

I ducked into the galley only briefly when I was too hungry to ignore it anymore. I didn’t check on the Doctor. He was an adult (even if he didn’t act like it sometimes). He could feed himself.

Except he didn’t. When I went to apologize for essentially hiding all day, the Doctor still hadn’t moved. The toast had remained untouched, although one of the cookies was gone. That wasn’t a great sign.

“Doctor?” He looked up, but his eyes were just  _ empty _ . Deep and ancient and broken, and if my heart hurt just looking at him, then how did his hearts feel? I couldn’t… I wasn’t equipped to deal with that. Anger, sorrow? Those I could help with. But emptiness? “I’m, um…” Was something as normal as ‘what do you want for dinner?’ even appropriate here? “Nevermind.”

I did bring him food (just scrambled eggs. I couldn’t make myself cook anything more complicated) and slept on the couch again.

The Doctor still hadn’t moved by the time I woke up. The TARDIS hummed worry, and I tried to soothe her. He’d be fine, if I had anything to say about it.

I cleared the food the Doctor hadn’t eaten. The TARDIS had kept it warm, somehow, so that was my breakfast. I stress baked about five more batches of cookies.

The Doctor still hadn’t moved.

I checked the console, read a repair book, and checked again.

The Doctor still hadn’t moved.

Ok. That was enough of that.

There wasn’t much left in the way of ingredients in the Galley, but there was enough for an old favorite. My dad always made stew as a comfort food. Fail a test? Stew. Get snowed in for two days? Stew. Break a leg? Stew. 

Comfort food was what we needed right now. Luckily, I knew Dad’s recipe.

<...>

The Doctor looked up from the bowl that had suddenly found its way into his lap. Katelyn was standing in front of him, holding out a spoon.

“Eat,” she said in a tone that brokered no room for debate. He didn’t move. Katelyn took a calming breath. “You’ve been sitting in this exact spot for at least 48 hours. Time Lord or no, you need to eat.” The Doctor took the spoon from Katelyn, more to please her than from any desire to actually eat. She just kept standing there, though, so the Doctor took a bite.

Katelyn had made stew, it turned out. He had no idea where she’d gotten the ingredients, or why the taste made him feel so nostalgic, but it tasted really good. So he took another bite. And another.

When he paused between bites, the bowl (empty, when did that happen?) disappeared from his hands and was replaced by a new, full one. The Doctor looked up. Katelyn set the empty bowl down on the table in front of him and sat down with her own bowl. She was smiling slightly, but didn’t try to get him to talk.

The Doctor had never so appreciated how well Katelyn knew him. 

When they were done, she wordlessly took the bowl and went to leave the library. “If you want more, I left the pot on the stove,” she said. “It’s stew, so it’ll keep for a good while.”

A question the Doctor didn’t even realize he wanted to ask burst it’s way out of his mouth. “What have you been doing?”

“Sorry?” Katelyn said. He looked over.

“I’ve been in here for two days. Where have you been?” Katelyn waved her empty hand around. 

“Oh, all about,” she said in a tone the Doctor knew was falsely light. “Cleaned my room, watched some movies, didalittlerepairtotheconsole, baked a lot.” The Doctor sat up straighter.

“You did what?”

“I baked a lot. Mostly just sugar cookies, cause we’re really low on-”

“No, no before that.” Katelyn shifted from foot to foot, looking very much like a child who’d just gotten caught doing something they knew they weren’t allowed to do.

“I… one of the switches on the console kept sparking, and I know you told me there were some books on basic repair, so I found one, and I fixed it. It just needed a new wire. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it, it probably wasn’t even that important. I-”

The Doctor was off his chair, across the room, and hugging Katelyn before he was even aware his limbs wanted to move. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair, voice horse and eyes full of tears again. Katelyn hugged back, with the arm that wasn’t holding the dishes. 

“Well, like I said before, one of us had to be ok right now, and it shouldn’t be you,” she said. “Not when it doesn’t have to be.” 

The Doctor wanted to say ‘I don’t need someone to take care of me’. He was a Time Lord. He was 900-and-some years old, older even, probably. He’d been alone before. He’d survived. 

But that would have been a lie. Besides, Katelyn healed better by helping people, so who was he to stop her?

“I am going to have to check your work,” the Doctor said, finally pulling away from the hug. “And I guess we’re two days behind on lessons.”

Katelyn smiled. “Well, I’m a fast learner. We can make up for lost time.” She shook the bowls. “After I wash the dishes, that is.” She turned and left. “Which reminds me, we need to go shopping. The _ scraps  _ I had to work with…”

Now that Rose was… separated from him (not dead, she was safe, he had to hold on to that), it seemed Katelyn had stepped into the role Rose had always taken for her own. Donna was wrong. Katelyn was much better than he was.

The Doctor needed someone to ground him. Someone to counter him. Someone to temper him.

The Eye of the Oncoming Storm.

Rassilon, this regeneration was so codependent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW that thing with “Theia” is not a reference to an adventure not pictured in this story. It is the currently most accepted theory on the creation of the moon. It’s called the giant-impact hypothesis and it’s super interesting. I would highly suggest a google if that’s interesting to you.


	7. Smiths and Jones

Martha Jones was having an interesting day. She’d known Leo’s birthday was bound to have some… complications. She’d expected the calls from her family all day. She’d expected the drama, and she’d expected work, and she always expected a few surprises at work. What she had  _ not  _ expected was an extremely handsome man to stop her on the street, showing that he’d taken his tie off and disappearing again, and  _ then,  _ somehow, have that man be right here in the hospital she worked at.

“Now then, Mr. Smith, a very good morning to you,” Mr. Stoker said as he rounded the corner to the patient’s bed. “How are you-” There was a young woman seated in a chair next to Mr. Smith’s bed, appearing to have a hushed chat with him. Martha could easily tell from the sundress she was wearing that this woman was not hospital staff. “Excuse me, who are you?”

“Oh, sorry.” The woman jumped up and offered her hand. “Marie Smith, I’m John’s little sister.” Mr. Stoker shook her hand, seemingly charmed. 

“Of course,” he said. “No. I mean, my apologies. Mr. Smith’s visiting hours aren’t until later.” Marie didn’t hesitate a moment before reaching into her pocket and pulling out what looked like a worn leather wallet.

“Your supervisor gave me written permission to come in early.” Marie flicked the wallet open and passed it to Mr. Stoker. He looked at the paper inside for a long moment. “Sorry, did he not call ahead?” Mr. Stoker completely missed the look of pride that John was wearing. Martha, uneasy, did not.

“No, he must have forgotten. No matter, as long as you don’t mind the students.” Marie shook her head, and tucked herself back into her chair. The medical students exchanged looks. Mr. Stoker was not that easy to sway. “Now, Mr. Smith, how are you feeling today?” Martha focused back on John too. He was the patient after all. She could think about how weird this was later.

“Oh, not so bad. Still a bit, you know, blah.” John was beaming.

“Well, it seems your sister’s visit has done you a world of good.” Mr. Stoker turned to the group of medical students. “John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains.” Several students raised their clipboards and immediately started taking notes. “Jones,” he said. Martha straightened immediately. “Why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me.” Martha circled around the medical bed.

“That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?” she scolded. 

“Sorry?” John responded quietly, eyes locked on Martha.

“On Chancellor Street this morning?” Martha pulled out her stethoscope and leaned over. “You came up to me and took your tie off.”

“Really?” John sounded legitimately confused, which stopped Martha in her tracks. He looked past her, to Marie. “What did I do that for?” 

“I don't know, you just did.” Martha searched John’s eyes for any chance he was lying, or maybe a sign of a concussion. 

“Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses.” John gestured to his head to the nurse desk in the room. “And you can ask Marie. I wasn’t home.” Marie shook her head.

“Well, that's weird,” Martha felt as confused as John looked. “Cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?”

“No, not any more.” John looked at his sister, asking several silent questions. 

“As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones,” Mr. Stoker interrupted, snapping the two out of the illusion that they were the only people in the room.

“Sorry.” Martha popped the stethoscope in her ears. “Right.” She pressed the round end to the top on John’s pajamas, and froze. At first, it sounded like his heart was running extremely fast, but as she listened longer, the second rhythm sounded almost like an echo, almost like- 

Martha made eye contact with John, who was smiling a knowing smile. She looked away and moved the stethoscope to the other side of his chest. The same sound came from there, only with the volumes reversed. Martha froze, eyes locked on John’s face. He winked, expression staying neutral. 

“I weep for future generations,” Mr. Stoker interrupted again. Martha straightened up, John’s knowing smile following her the whole way. “Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?”

“Um.” Martha was having a hard time getting her brain to work around this new information. “I don't know.” She tried laughing it off. “Stomach cramps?”

“That is a symptom, not a diagnosis,” Mr. Stoker scoffed. He moved to the end of the medical bed. “And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart.” Mr. Stoker reached to touch the clip on the plastic board, and was met with a shock so strong he dropped it.

“That happened to me this morning,” Martha realized.

“I had the same thing on the door handle,” another student added. 

“And me, on the lift.”

“Well, that's only to be expected,” Stoker stated in his all-knowing tone. He picked the clipboard back up. “There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by…” Mr. Stoker gave the students perhaps a second to think. “Anyone?”

Martha knew. It was-

“Benjamin Franklin,” John announced without hesitation. 

“Correct,” Mr. Stoker said. John took a long breath, as if he were planning a speech. 

“My mate, Ben.” He looked at the ceiling. “That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite-” Marie shot a hand out and covered John’s mouth. He frowned at her, but she just smiled at the medical staff. 

“John doesn’t sleep well away from home,” she explained. With a nod and a farewell, Mr. Stoker led the group away quietly. When Martha glanced back behind her, she was pretty sure she heard Marie whisper ‘human custom’ and ‘linear time’.

<..>

“Well, I’ve got nothing,” the Doctor admitted, walking up to where I was trying to look inconspicuous against the wall. “Any luck?”   
  


I shook my head. “No one here feels inhuman but you,” I said. “Not sure I could really sense everyone though.” The Doctor sighed and started walking back to his hospital bed.

“We’ll have to make another round,” he said. “ _ With  _ the sonic this time.” I sighed, but knew there would be no arguing.

“Yeah, but listen-” Martha Jones’s voice drifted out as we approached a break room. “-I'll tell you what we do-” Her voice cut off, and I looked to see her catching glimpses of the Doctor and I as we passed. He looked at her for a second, but I winked as we kept going. “We tell Dad and Annalise to get there early…” 

We were almost to the room when I caught a look at the rain out the window. “Doctor.” I tugged at his robe, which stopped him. “The rain.” He studied the window intently.

“Get down!” We dropped and curled into balls. Not even seconds later, the building shook violently around us. 

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked as soon as the floor was still. I took the Doctor’s offered hand and he pulled me to my feet. 

“Yeah, fine.”

“Good.” He took my hand and we ran down the rest of the hall. 

When we got to the room with the Doctor’s hospital bed, he let go of my hand to get changed. 

Sheer panic radiated out of the walls as the people in the hospital discovered what had happened. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. It was ok. We were going to get out of this.

“We've got an emergency, but we'll sort it out. Don't worry,” I heard Martha Jones shout, as if it would really help. I opened my eyes and watched Martha walk over to the window in wonder.

“It's real,” she said like she was trying to convince herself. “It's really real. Hold on.” Martha reached to open the window. The woman with her lunged to grab her arms. 

“Don't!” She sounded like she was close to tears. “We'll lose all the air.” Martha shook her head.

“But they're not exactly airtight.” She gestured at the windows, but kept a grip on her friend’s hand in comfort. “If the air was going to get sucked out, it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?” I started walking over, but was, of course, out dramatic entranced by the Doctor throwing the curtain around his bed open. 

“Very good point,” he announced to the room. “Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?” The Doctor had the look of respect he reserved for humanity on his face.

“Martha.”

“And it was Jones, wasn't it?” Martha nodded, seeming a little stunned. “Well then, Martha Jones-” The Doctor walked forward, beckoning me to follow. I rolled my eyes, but followed without a second thought. “The question is, how are we still breathing?”

“We can't be,” the other student nearly sobbed. 

“Obviously we are, so don't waste my time.” Glaring, I added ‘scolding a terrified woman’ to my list of things to call the Doctor out on later, walked behind her, put my hand on her shoulder, and projected calm. She stopped shaking.

“Martha, what have we got?” The Doctor was staring out the window, surveying every inch of the moon’s surface. “Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or-”

“By the patients' lounge, yeah.” The Doctor turned from the window and fixed his full attention on Martha. 

“Fancy going out?” he asked.

“Word choice, Doc,” I scolded. He had the gall to look confused.

“Okay.” Martha sounded rather breathless.

“We might die,” the Doctor offered.

“We might not,” Martha countered.

“Good.” The Doctor smiled his half smile and started jogging away. “Come on you two.” He pointed to the not-quite-terrified-anymore woman as he went. The Doctor opened his mouth, then wisely snapped it shut again.

We were at the patient’s balcony in seconds. The Doctor and I each grabbed a handle, not bothering to hide our excited smiles as we pushed the doors open and rushed outside. On the balcony, we took twin deep breaths. While the Doctor stayed back, I skipped to the balcony edge and leaned over.

“I love the moon,” I declared. “We should come here more often.” I heard Martha take a deep breath and turned to watch her.

“We've got air,” she gasped. The other two walked forward to join me at the balcony edge. “How does that work?”

“Just be glad it does,” I offered, letting the Doctor put the full strength of his mind into solving. 

Martha started breathing hard, so I slid closer and put a hand on her back. “I've got a party tonight.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t pull away from my touch. “It's my brother's twenty first. My mother's going to be really, really…” Martha’s voice tailed off, and only then did the Doctor seem to realize she was new to this.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

“Yeah,” Martha answered immediately. 

“Sure?” I double checked.

“Yeah,” she answered just as quickly.

“Want to go back in?” the Doctor offered. I took my hand off her back. Only then did Martha look away from the surface of the moon. 

“No way,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same, it's beautiful.” The Doctor had his respecting humans face on again, as he walked over and stood on the other side of Martha.

“Do you think?” he asked. I watched him gaze out at Earth like it was the reason for existence, genuine love and wonder aging his features back by centuries. I mirrored his smile as best a 21 year old human could. It was good to see him relax.

“How many people want to go to the moon?” Martha had the grin of a child at Christmas on her face. “And here we are.”

“Standing in the Earthlight,” the Doctor agreed, leaning forward. I was already halfway to boosting myself to perch on the balcony when the Doctor asked “how many floors are we?” He wasn’t even looking at me. I scoffed, but dropped down to the floor anyway.

“Ye of little faith.”

“What do you think happened?” Martha still sounded far more curious than scared.

“What do you think?” the Doctor asked in a tone far more probbing than curious.

Martha hesitated. “Extraterrestrial.” The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, in a fairly bad imitation of surprise. Luckily, Martha didn’t seem to be in a noticing mood. “It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad,” she almost laughed. “But these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things.” The Doctor looked Martha up and down, trying to read her.

“I had a cousin. Adeola,” Martha started again. I looked down.  _ She was gone before you got there. There was nothing you could do.  _ “She worked at Canary Wharf.” Martha paused, shaking her head. “She never came home.” Martha looked like she wanted to say more, but her voice had cut out. I knew the feeling well.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said. I didn’t trust my voice.

Martha just nodded and said “yeah” really quietly. 

The rare moment of youth was gone from the Doctor’s face. “I was there. We both were.” I was very glad to realize the other person in that both was me. “In the battle. It was-” The Doctor’s voice just stopped, in the way it did when he was lost in memory. I walked around Martha to the Doctor’s other side, slid my arm around his waist, and rested my head on his arm. To my relief, he reached his arm around me and tugged me a bit closer.

Martha took a deep breath. “I promise you, Mr. Smith, Miss Smith, we will find a way out.” Her conviction settled in my heart. Oh, I liked Martha Jones. “If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way.” The Doctor straightened up, letting go of our side hug and pacing around the balcony

“It's not Smith. That's not our real name.” Martha turned away from staring at the moon to where the Doctor was now leaning against the balcony. I mirrored his posture.

“Who are you, then?” Martha asked 

“I'm the Doctor.”

“Me too, if I can pass my exams,” Martha told the moon. “What is it then, Doctor Smith?” 

“Just the Doctor.” He walked to the other side of the balcony.

“How do you mean, just the Doctor?” Martha kept looking back and forth between him and me. The Doctor turned around with wide eyes. 

“Just... the Doctor.” He shook his head, like he hadn’t had this conversation a thousand times. Martha tilted her head in obvious disbelief.

“What, people call you the Doctor?” 

“Yeah.” He pointed to me. Martha turned with that look of “really” still on her face. I shrugged in a ‘what can you do?’ kind of way.

“Well, I'm not,” Martha said. She turned back to the moon. “Far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title.”

“Well-” The Doctor gave me a knowing look. “I'd better make a start, then.” The Doctor walked over to a piece of rubble on the balcony floor and picked it up. “Let's have a look.” He pitched it out into the air. “There must be some sort of-” The rock hit the air, which let out shockwaves. “Forcefield. Keeping the air in.” Martha frowned.

“But if that's like a bubble sealing us in, that means this is the only air we've got.” Her eyes widened in horror. “What happens when it runs out?”

“Oh,” I whispered. I knew how I could help. The Doctor turned to look at me. I must have been quiet, because Martha didn’t seem to notice. I also must have had a look in my eyes, cause the Doctor just nodded toward the doors. I turned and ran back into the hospital. 

<...>

The Doctor watched Katelyn run with curiosity, but he trusted her. He  _ did,  _ and she’d be  _ fine,  _ even if she was out of his sight-

“How many people in this hospital?” he made himself ask Martha.

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “A thousand?”

“One thousand people,” The Doctor couldn’t look at Martha. “Suffocating.” 

“Why would anyone do that?” she cried. “And where’d Marie go?” Before the Doctor could answer, the rumbling of engines in an atmosphere caught their attentions.

“Head's up!” he declared, watching the sky. “Ask ‘em yourself.” He watched unmistakable giant columns of spaceship move over the top of the hospital, shaking the foundations. Each one was about twice the height of the hospital, landing far away from the building. The Doctor saw the columns of humanoids marching out.

“Aliens,” he heard Martha breath out next to him. “That's aliens. Real, proper aliens.” She sounded, frankly, a little too excited, but the Doctor was focused more on trying to understand. 

“Judoon,” he said, not really bothering to mask the distaste in his voice. 

<...>

“Er, we are citizens of planet Earth.” The Doctor watched, with some pride, as one of the medical students from earlier walked right up to the Judoon. “We welcome you in peace.” He watched with slightly less pride as said Judoon pushed the man against a wall and held his scanner to the young man’s face. “Please don't hurt me,” he stuttered. “I was just trying to help. I'm sorry, don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me.”

The Judoon pressed a button and the student’s exact words played back. Then he pressed his scanner into his armor.

“Language assimilated. Designation: Earth English. You will be catalogued.” He shoved his scanner in the terrified man’s face. “Category: human.” He grabbed the man’s hand, and wrote an “x” on the back with what honestly sounded like a sharpie. “Catalogue all suspects,” the Judoon declared. The rest spread out, yanking people with no finesse and probably scaring them half to death as they scanned and catalogued. 

As he observed from a floor above, the Doctor found his eyes wandering. “Oh, look down there, you've got a little shop. I like a little shop.”

“Never mind that.” Martha sounded angry that he’d gotten distracted, which was fair, he supposed. “What are Judoon?” 

“They're like police. Well, police for hire,” the Doctor explained. “They're more like interplanetary thugs.”

“And they brought us to the moon?” Again, Martha sounded more curious than anything. The Doctor would have been impressed if he wasn’t so focused.

“Neutral territory. According to galactic law, they've got no jurisdiction over the Earth, and they isolated it,” he rushed. “That rain, lightning? That was them, using an H2O scoop.” He should have recognized it sooner.

“What are you on about, galactic law? Where'd you get that from?” The Doctor moved from behind the plants to get a better view, and was only a little surprised to find Martha followed instantly. “If they're police, are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?” 

The Doctor smiled. “No, but I like that. Good thinking.” When the Doctor looked over at Martha, he found that Katelyn had also slid silently back into the scene. “No, I wish it were that simple.” The Doctor looked over at Katelyn, crouched behind the plants. “And where have you been?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Knocking out any patient still in their bed,” she said quietly, observing the chaos below them. Martha gave her a scandalized look, but Katelyn didn’t seem to notice. “And one prat who was gonna hit a Jadoon with a chair or something.”

“What? Why?” The Doctor watched the Judoon go around and scan various people, grunt “human”, and move on.

She gave him that ‘and you call yourself clever?’ look that he secretly didn’t hate. “We’re on the moon.” she said slowly. He nodded. “In a forcefield.” He nodded again. Katelyn took a deep breath. “Meaning-”

“Oh,” the Doctor said very quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant.”

“I have my moments,” Katelyn agreed. “How many do you think I can get in one go?”

“I’m sorry?” Martha nearly glared at Katelyn. “How are you knocking people out?” The Doctor almost smiled when he noticed Katelyn already making for the stairs.

“Not with head trauma, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she called over her shoulder. The Doctor just shook his head and went back to trying to learn.

“They're making a catalogue,” he realized. “That means they're after something non human,

which is very bad news for me.”  _ And possible Katelyn,  _ his brain provided, unhelpfully. 

“Why?” Martha whispered. The Doctor turned and gave her his best serious face. She met his gaze and smiled immediately. “Oh, you're kidding me.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Don't be ridiculous.” When his expression didn’t shift, Martha’s smile dropped. “Stop looking at me like that.” 

The Doctor looked back at the reception area. He could just see Katelyn coming in, but as much as he wanted to watch her extend her powers to their full capacity, the Judoon were almost done with the catalogue.  _ She would be fine. _ “Come on then.” 

<...>

I strood into the reception room with all the confidence I could muster. A Judoon pushed me against a wall nearly immediately, but all I did was give him a dramatic sigh. He scanned a bit longer than he scanned anyone else, before  _ shockingly _ declaring me human and moving on.

“Troop five, floor one. Troop six, floor two.” I slipped to the other side of the room silently. I slid on the wall next to the medical student who was so brave and elbowed him lightly. He turned a little too quickly to look at me.

I just smiled at him. “Hey, you should probably follow them.”

“Follow… What?” He was shaking, so I took his hand and tried to send him some calm, which was much harder than it should have been. This was the biggest strain I’d ever exerted on my telepathy, and I was starting to feel it.

“Follow the rhino-things. Tell people they mean no harm. And by no means let anyone attack them. It’s an offense punishable by death in their culture.” The student nodded his head valiantly. Then he ran after the Judoon with more courage than I had been giving him credit for. 

_ He’ll be a great doctor,  _ I thought happily.

I found an empty chair and plopped myself down. I closed my eyes and started humming, sending out a telepathic lullaby. Humans weren’t exactly telepathic, but they also weren’t completely psy-null. They couldn’t send, but they could receive.

And receive they did. Slowly, spreading out from where I was, everyone in the room started falling asleep. I kept humming until I was sure everyone was asleep. I nodded, and tried to stand. My back was really going to complain later, because I promptly passed out in the chair.

<...>

The Doctor stopped sonicing the computer. Katelyn’s mind… shut out. She couldn’t be dead, he was sure, but to just stop so suddenly was very unlike her. With the Judoon scanning for humans and Katelyn’s history with those scans... 

The dark path his loss ridden memory was about to take him on was interrupted by Martha bursting into the room. “They've reached the third floor,” she said. The Doctor shook his head and went back to working on the computer. “What's that thing?” 

“Sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor grumbled. He would have been frustrated by this machine at the best of times, but the sudden lack of any reassuring presence in the telepathic field was… not helping.

“Well, if you're not going to answer me properly.” Martha's casual tone honestly helped him focus. He turned around and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look. 

“No, really, it is. It's a screwdriver, and it's-” He held to tool up, as if it looked anything like it’s namesake. “-sonic. Look.” Then he turned back to work on the computer more.

“What else have you got,” Martha teased, walking over. “A laser spanner?”

“I did, but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, cheeky woman. What’s wrong with this computer!” He hit the offending piece of technology, as if that had ever helped. “The Judoon must have locked it down. Judoon platoon upon the moon.” He ran a hand down his face. 

“Because we were just travelling past. I swear, we were just wandering. I wasn't looking for trouble, honestly, I wasn't.” He’d already used that argument enough times that Katelyn had grown numb to it, but Martha seemed to take it to heart. “But I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that's a plasma coil. Been building up for two days now, so I checked in. We thought something was going on inside. It turns out the plasma coils were the Judoon up above.” He ran his hand through what he was sure was thoroughly messed up hair and turned back to the computer.

“But what were they looking for?” Martha asked. The Doctor was impressed with how she was taking this all in stride. 

“Something that looks human, but isn't.”

“Like you or Marie, apparently.”

“Like me, not- “ The Doctor turned to Martha. “Her name’s not Marie, and don’t worry about her.” He wasn’t sure if he was saying that for Martha's benefit or his own. “She’s human enough. But they don't want us.”

“Haven't they got a photo?” 

“Well.” He drew the word out in the way he did when he was thinking. “Might be a shape-changer.” He closed the files he’d been trying to get into and tried again.

“Whatever it is, can't you just leave the Judoon to find it?” Martha asked.

“If they declare the hospital guilty of harbouring a fugitive, they'll sentence it to execution.” It took a moment for that to sink in for Martha.

“All of us?”

“Oh yes. If I can find this thing first.” The Doctor watched the files disappear, and his frustration boiled over. “Oh! You see, they're thick! Judoon are thick! They are completely thick! They’ve wiped the records!” he shouted. “Oh, that's clever.” 

“What are we looking for?” Martha offered. The Doctor ran his hands over his hair again, wishing he had someone more experienced with this kind of situation at his side. He shouldn’t have let Katelyn step away.

“I don't know. Say, any patient admitted in the past week with unusual symptoms. Maybe there's a backup.” He snatched the computer up and turned it over, not really registering Martha talking until she was gone.

It only took a minute to restore the backup, but the Doctor realized he needed someone who knew the hospital to make heads or tails of it. He tore out of the room to find Martha.

Halfway to the office, Martha crashed right into him. “I've restored the back-up.”

“I found her.” 

“You did what?” was all the Doctor had time to say before the door that Martha had just come out of burst off its hinges and what looked like a man wearing motorcycle gear burst out. 

The Doctor acted on instinct, grabbing Martha’s hand and dashing in the first direction that felt right. He ran fast, mind focused on getting somewhere he could disable the Slab. He ran down a flight of stairs, narrowly avoiding crashing into some Judoon, before turning and running down another hallway. He caught the word ‘radiology’ for a split second, and suddenly had a destination.

The Doctor and Martha burst into an X-Ray room. The Doctor paused for a second to lock the door, then shoved Martha behind the protective wall. “When I say now, press the button.” 

“But I don't know which one,” Martha shouted. 

“Then find out!” He went to the x-ray machine and began working. 

Work done, he aimed the x-ray machine at the door, a full five seconds before it burst off its hinges. “Now!” The machine blared to life, and the Slab dropped dead. 

“What did you do?” Martha gasped.

“Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him dead.”

“Can’t kill something that was never really alive, can you?” The Doctor looked up from the slab to see Katelyn leaning in the doorway. She looked tired, but otherwise fine. He tried not to show the relief he felt when he saw her, but from her smile, he could guess she knew anyway.

“But isn't that going to kill _ you _ ?” Martha asked, also looking at Katelyn in the doorway.

“Nah, it's only roentgen radiation,” the Doctor said dismissively. “We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out. I've absorbed it all.” He only really said it for Martha’s benefit, as Katelyn had already entered the room and was nudging the dead Slab with her foot. “All I need to do is expel it. If I concentrate, I can shake the radiation out of my body and into one spot. Say my left shoe. Here we go, here we go.” He hopped around for a bit, making a show of sending the radiation into his left shoe, which he then ripped off and tossed into a nearby trash can. “Done.” Katelyn had the courtesy to clap. He bowed.

“You're completely mad,” Martha said with the tone of someone who was just now figuring that out.

“You're right,” the Doctor said seriously. “I look daft with one shoe.” He quickly pulled the other one off and sent it to join it’s brother. “Barefoot on the moon.” He clicked his teeth with a wide grin.

“Sounds like fun,” Katelyn declared, pulling off her shoes and tossing them behind her. 

“Is that why you wore those today?” the Doctor laughed. She smiled.

“What other reason could I possibly have for wearing Mary-Janes?” she shot back. The Doctor laughed again. Martha shook herself out of a daze. 

“So what is that thing?” She focused on the least crazy thing in the room. “And where's it from, the planet Zovirax?”

“It's just a Slab.” The Doctor went back into ‘explain mode’ as he kneeled down next to the fallen thing. “They're called Slabs. Basic slave drones. See? Solid leather, all the way through. Someone has got one hell of a fetish.” The Doctor suddenly realized he didn’t have his sonic, and turned to the machine to get it back.

“But it was that woman, Miss Finnegan,” Martha explained, also rising. “It was working for her, just like a servant.” The Doctor pulled the sonic from the machine to find it fried.

“My sonic screwdriver,” he said mournfully.

“She was one of the patients, but-” 

“Burnt out my sonic screwdriver.” He held it up for Katelyn to see. 

“She had a straw like some kind of vampire-”

“You can make another one,” Katelyn offered. 

“Doctor?” Martha said with more force. That caught his attention. He tossed the broken tool over his shoulder. Katelyn walkedover to get it.

“Sorry.” He grinned. “You called me Doctor.” 

“Anyway?” Martha tried to pull some sense of reason and urgency back into the scene. “Miss Finnegan is the alien. She was drinking Mister Stoker's blood.”

“Oh my God,” Katelyn whispered, too quiet for Martha to hear. “Mr. Stoker, how did I never pick up on that.”

“Funny time to take a snack.” The Doctor ignored Katelyn. “You'd think she'd be hiding. Unless. No.” He turned to look at Katelyn, who raised her eyebrows. “Yes, that's it. Wait a minute. Yes!” He ran back and forth between the two women. “Shape-changer. Internal shape-changer.” Martha looked confused, but Katelyn was immune at this point. “She wasn't drinking blood, she was assimilating it. If she can assimilate Mr. Stoker's blood, mimic the biology, she'll register as human.” The Doctor paused for just a second as it all clicked into place. “We've got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!”

<...>

Quit how we ended up huddled behind a water dispenser, I’ll never know, but I found myself holding my breath as the other Slab creaked past. “That's the thing about Slabs,” the Doctor muttered. “They always travel in pairs.”

“Like you?” Martha asked.

“Like us what?” the Doctor responded absently. I watched the Slab retreat and push his through the next set of doors with immense relief.

“You two travel in pairs,” she said.

I huffed a laugh. “Oh, he’s just stuck with me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Humans,” the Doctor scoffed. I raised my eyebrows, pretending to be insulted. “We're stuck on the moon running out of air with Judoon and a bloodsucking criminal, you're asking personal questions?” He stood up slowly. “Come on.”

“I like that,” Martha teased. “Humans. I'm still not convinced either of you are alien.” As soon as the Doctor turned out into the hallway, a Judoon shoved its scanner in his face. I sighed. 

“Non-human,” it declared.

“Oh my God, you really are,” Martha said. The Doctor snagged our hands.

“And again,” and we were running. We managed to get around the corner before the Judoon’s weapons could go off. Luckily for my legs, it was only up one flight of stairs before we burst onto a floor that had clearly already been swept. We ran through a door that the Doctor locked by hand. I ran my thumb over the fried sonic in my pocket.

The hallway was a mess. People were starting to drop to the floor. I could feel the air was thinner. I closed my eyes, wishing I could do more. I’d pass out if I tried.

“They've done this floor,” the Doctor said. “Come on.” When I listened, I could hear Martha panting. I wasn’t surprised to note that the Doctor was fine, but I was surprised to find that I was breathing fine. “The Judoon are logical and just a little bit thick. They won't go back to check a floor they've checked already. If we're lucky.” I chalked it up to all the practice running. 

Martha stopped walking. I nearly tripped over her as she crouched next to the woman who had been terrified earlier. She was holding an oxygen mask to a patient’s face. “How much oxygen is there?” Martha asked.

“Not enough for all these people,” Terrified woman confessed. “We're going to run out.” 

“How are you two feeling?” The Doctor asked us. “Are you all right?”

“I'm running on adrenaline,” Martha said.

“Welcome to our world.” The Doctor looked up and down that hallway, trying to piece a plan together.

“Yeah, the respiratory bypass probably doesn’t hurt either,” I mumbled. The Doctor gave me a look I hadn’t seen in a while. That painful little spark of hope. I bit my lip, hoping he couldn’t read on my face how much it hurt to see again. “I meant yours, dofus.”

“What about the Judoon?” Martha asked. The Doctor dropped his eyes.

“Nah, great big lung reserves. It won't slow them down. Where's Mr. Stoker's office?” Martha stood back up, and started walking with a purpose. 

“It's this way.” The Doctor let Martha take the lead. When I moved to pass him, he grabbed my arms and gave me the clearest ‘we’re talking about that later’ look he could. I just nodded and followed Martha.

I watched the Doctor and his soon to be companion enter the office, but I stayed in the hallway. I tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the Time Lord Reborn. Because I wasn’t. I  _ wasn’t.  _

I was human.

“Think, think, think.” I focused on the Doctor's voice, the present day, reality. “If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?” I watched him come out of the office and catch sight of the MRI sign and groan. “She's as clever as me. Almost.” There was a crash at the end of the hallway, followed by a few screams. 

“Find the non-human. Execute,” a Judoon growled. The Doctor rushed in front of Martha. I got that feeling that this was one of those moments that I had thought about stopping, but my mind was too focused on not thinking to pick it out.

“Martha, stay here. I need time. You've got to hold them up.”  _ I could do it _ , I almost offered. Why wasn’t he asking-

“How do I do that?” She sounded scared for once.

“Just forgive me for this. It could save a thousand lives. It means nothing.” Martha was nodding quickly, already agreeing. “Honestly, nothing.” I watched as the Doctor grabbed Martha’s face and pulled her to him. He kissed her, long and hard by the looks of it. I choked on a gasp. Oh yeah, that was what I wanted to prevent.

He pulled away just as quickly, grabbing my hand and running down the hallway. He hadn’t meant to establish a link yet, but he couldn’t really help it at that moment. I could feel the shame, the guilt, the anger the kiss made him feel as we ran. I tried to send reassurance back, but nothing changed. He was a brick wall of self-recrimination, as usual.

When we got just outside the MRI room, it was clear that something inside was very wrong. The Doctor skidded to a halt and gripped my hand tighter. I felt the press of his mind against mine, and opened a communications link.

_ Can’t risk words, sorry. _

I nodded.  _ Agreed. Plan? _

_ Stay out here. You’re my Plan B.  _ The Doctor let go of my hand, but the link stayed live as he pushed the door open and walked in.  _ If it all goes pear-shaped, go find Martha. Get the Judoon over here. _ I closed my eyes and focused on the link, listening.

I heard something -  _ The MRI machine  _ \- sparking.  _ Florence is here.  _

_ Be careful. _

“Have you seen them? There are these things,” the Doctor shouted, loud enough that I didn’t need the link to hear him. “These great big space rhino things. I mean, rhinos from space.” He paused. “And we're on the moon! Great big space rhinos with guns on the moon!

“And I only came in for my bunions, look.” I covered my mouth and laughed. The Doctor felt amused. “I mean, all fixed now. Perfectly good treatment. The nurses were lovely. I said to my wife, I said I'd recommend this place to anyone, but then we end up on the moon. And…did I mention the rhinos?” 

Silence, then “hold him.” The sound of creaking leather and panic quickly followed by reassurance from the Doctor. 

“Um, that, that big, er, machine thing,” the Doctor said. “Is it supposed to be making that noise?”

“You wouldn't understand,” Florence dismissed.

_ Rude. _

“But isn't that a magnetic resonance imaging thing? Like a ginormous sort of a magnet? I did magnetics GCSE.” It was amazing to be just enough in his head to watch him build the lies in real time. “Well, I failed, but all the same.”

“A magnet setting now increased to fifty thousand Tesla,” Florence crooned, sounding extremely pleased with herself.

“Ooo, that's a bit strong.” The Doctor pauses. “Isn't it?”

“It'll send out a magnetic pulse that'll fry the brain stems of every living thing within two hundred and fifty thousand miles.” She almost sounds like she wants to giggle. “Except for me, safe in this room.”

_ That’s bad, I assume?  _ I asked.

“But er, hold on, hold on,” the Doctor said out loud. He already knew the answer, he just needed to know she did too. “I did geography GCSE. I passed that one. Doesn't that distance include the Earth?” 

“Only the side facing the moon.” She said it so easily, so carelessly. “The other half will survive. Call it my little gift.”

“I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me, I'm a little out of my depth.” The Doctor forced a laugh. “I've spent the past fifteen years working as a postman. Hence the bunions. Why would you do that?”

“With everyone dead, the Judoon ships will be mine, to make my escape.” Florence sounded like she was explaining her plan to an idiot, yet she was explaining it all the same.

“No, that's weird.” The Doctor chuckled. “You're talking like you're some sort of an alien.”

“Quite so.”

“No!” 

“Oh, yes.”

“You're joshing me.”

“I am not.” She seemed done with the game. 

“I'm talking to an alien? In hospital? What, has the place got an ET department?” I didn’t laugh this time.

“It's the perfect hiding place. Blood banks downstairs for a midnight feast, and all this equipment ready to arm myself with should the police come looking.” 

“So, those rhinos, they're looking for you?” the Doctor asked.

“Yes. But I'm hidden.” She drew the last word out like a whispered secret.

“Right,” the Doctor drawled. “Maybe that's why they're increasing their scans.” 

“They're doing what?” A reaction.

A deep breath. “Big chief rhino boy, he said, no sign of a non-human, we must increase our scans up to setting two?” A pause.

“Then I must assimilate again.”

“What does that mean?” 

“I must appear to be human.” 

“Well, you're welcome to come home and meet the wife. She'd be honoured. We can have cake.” He was nervous. 

“Why should I have cake? I've got my little straw.” Cold terror, though whether his or my own, I can’t discern.

“Oh, that's nice. Milkshake? I like banana.” 

“You're quite the funny man. And yet, I think, laughing on purpose at the darkness.” I blinked. “I think it's time you found some peace. Steady him!”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm afraid this is going to hurt. But if it's any consolation, the dead don't tend to remember.”

The connection shattered, and I had to take a few seconds to remember how breathing worked. The Doctor had broken the link from his end, I could feel it. He wasn’t screaming, and I morbidly wondered what the feeling was actually like. He didn’t want me to know, of course, that’s why he’d broken the link.

My arms trembled trying to myself upright. I needed to get into that room. I needed to save the Doctor. Fuck his “Plan B”. 

I heard heavy boots, and for the first and last time in my life, I was glad to see Judoon. I watched them stomp into the room, Martha close behind. I pulled myself up along the wall, despite every cell in my body screaming in protest. God, I was tired.

“Now see what you've done. This poor man just died of fright,” came Florence’s shrill voice. 

“Scan him,” boomed a Judoon. “Confirmation: Deceased.” I watched Martha disappear into the room. “Stop. Case closed.” Martha spoke too quietly. I couldn’t hear her over the Judoon. “Judoon have no authority over human crime.” It took immense effort to put one foot in front of the other.

“She’s not-” I tried.

“But she's not human!” Martha shouted.

“Oh, but I am. I've been catalogued,” Florence sneered. I just managed to get in the doorway.

“But she's not! She assimi-” Martha started. “Wait a minute. You drank his blood? The Doctor's blood?” I watched as Martha snagged a scanner off the nearest Judoon and pointed it at Florence. It made a series of whirs and beeps that the TARDIS didn’t translate in my head.

“Oh, I don't mind. Scan all you like,” Florence said happily. I smirked.

“Non-human.”

“But, what?” She sounded truly confused. 

“Confirm analysis.”

“Oh, but it's a mistake, surely. I'm human.” She still believed she was free, still believed she was safe. “I'm as human as they come.” Anger boiled in my stomach.

“He gave his life so they'd find you,” Martha said quietly. I pushed my way past the Judoon, and draped myself around her shoulder. Martha seemed only slightly surprised that I was there, and, to my gratitude, did not try to shake me off.

“Confirm.” The Judoon continued as if we’re not there. “Plasmavore, charged with the crime of murdering the child princess of Patrival Regency Nine.” I glared, grossly happy the Judoon were going to execute her.

“Well, she deserved it!” Florence nearly growled. “Those pink cheeks and those blonde curls and that simpering voice. She was begging for the bite of a plasmavore.”

“Then you confess?” 

“Confess? I'm proud of it!” Martha looked at the Doctor on the floor. He had more color than Stoker had, which was a good sign, probably. How much blood did a Time Lord have? “Slab, stop them!” The Slab took maybe two steps forward before being vaporised by the Judoon’s guns.

“Verdict: guilty. Sentence: execution.” I watched in horror as Florence plugged in one last connection and a screen flashed MAGNETIC OVERLOAD. Brilliant. I was one for four today.

“Enjoy your victory, Judoon, because you're going to burn with me. Burn in hell!” Florence’s last words became a screech as she vaporized.

“Case closed,” the Judoon announced. Martha shifted me off her shoulders, dropped to the ground, and crawled over to the Doctor. The sight took my legs out from under me. He wasn’t dead.

“But what did she mean, burn with me?” Martha practically begged the Judoon. “The scanner shouldn't be doing that. She's done something.” A Judoon walked over and scanned the MRI. I watched weakly. I needed to fix that somehow.

“Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse,” he announced, far too casually for my liking. I started to crawl toward the wires. Something about the wires.

“Well, do something!” Martha was feeling for a pulse on the Doctor. “Stop it!”

“Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate.” 

“What?” Martha sounded weak. Hadn’t oxygen been an issue? “You can't just leave it. What's it going to do?” It couldn’t have been. I was breathing fine. 

“All units withdraw.”

I pulled myself across the room toward the wires. Martha ran out into the hallway and yelled something at the Judoon before running back in and dropping to the Doctor’s side. She paused for a moment, then started CPR. I just kept pulling myself over to the wires. It took entirely too long.

“Which one?” I muttered to myself. I heard the Doctor gasp a breath. I reached for the blue, then remembered. I pulled the red wire out, and the MRI machine fizzled back to normal. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to pass out. 

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and knew it could only be one person. “Hey, Doc.” He looked like death, but he was smiling at me. 

“Come on, up.” If we pushed off each other, we managed to get upright. We stumbled across the room. Martha was almost conscious. We draped one of her arms over each of our shoulders and made our way to a room with a window.

“Should.. be out of… oxygen by now,” Martha gasped.

“Yeah, well, people use a lot less air when they’re sleeping,” I finally explained. Martha looked at me as if seeing me in a new light, then passed out. We caught her.

“Come on, come on, come on, come on, please,” The Doctor started muttering as soon as we got to a window. “Come on, Judoon, reverse it.” 

Rain started beating hard against the windows. I cried in relief. The Doctor smiled. “It's raining.” Even he sounded a little out of breath. “It's raining on the moon.”

<...>

We watched from the side as paramedics sorted through the hospital, helping people up and giving them oxygen. Based on what the paramedics were saying, it seemed like Mr. Stoker was the only fatality. That was… incredibly lucky.

After a long silence, the Doctor sniffed. “You could have just used the nanogenes to heal me, you know.” I looked down at my wrist and was genuinely astonished to find that I had put the nanogene bracelet on that morning.

“I… forgot,” I said honestly. The Doctor turned back to walk into the TARDIS. “In my defense, oxygen deprivation.” He turned and gave Martha a cheeky smile and wave before disappearing into the ship. I gave her a thumbs up before following.

Once we were in the TARDIS, the Doctor threw a few switches, taking us into the Vortex. “Not oxygen deprivation.” The smile slid off my face. I knew that tone. I didn’t like that tone.

“I’m sorry?”

“You were experiencing telepathic exhaustion, which, no surprise there, but not oxygen deprivation.”

“Couldn’t it be both?” I asked. The Doctor looked at me in the way he only did when he knew we both knew that wasn’t the answer. “There was barely any oxygen left in that hospital. Martha passed out,” I insisted.

“Yes.” The Doctor threw another switch, then stepped away from the console. “Martha did.” He walked closer, but I held my ground. “But you didn’t.”

“I don’t know why,” I whispered.

The Doctor searched my face for a long time before relaxing, taking a deep breath, and running his hand through his hair. “No, you don’t.” He stalked around the console room, muttering and pulling at his hair. “Why does this keep happening? Why does it feel like we’re the only ones who don’t know?”

I walked over and stood next to him. “I’d tell you if I knew,” I said quietly. “You know that, right?” He sighed. Without a word, he turned and hugged me. We stayed there for a while, in the console room, just hugging, the TARDIS humming approval.

“I think she likes that we don’t fight anymore,” I offered, completely unwilling to lift my head from where I rested it on the Doctor’s chest. 

“I’m glad we don’t fight anymore,” he admitted. “Now-” The Doctor pulled away. “-set of clean clothes and I think we owe one Martha Jones a thank you.”

<...>

“Oh, I can't think why, after you stole my husband.” Martha marched out into the cool night air after her mother. 

“I was seduced,” her father’s girlfriend whined. “I'm entirely innocent. Tell her, babes!” 

“And then she has a go at Martha,” Mum shouted with the indignation only a mother can pull off. “Practically accused her of making the whole thing up.” 

“Mum, I don't mind. Just leave it,” Martha insisted. Her mother turned around, looking like she might drop it, when her father’s girlfriend made the mistake of speaking again.

“Oh. ‘I've been to the moon!’ As if,” Annalise scoffed. Martha almost laughed. She wouldn’t have believed herself this morning. “They were drugged. It said so on the news.” 

“Since when did you watch the news?” Mum started again. “You can't handle  _ Quiz Mania.” _

“Annalise started it,” Tish added without hesitation. “She did. I heard her.”

“Tish, don't make it worse,” Leo sighed.

“Come off it, Leo,” Tish said. Martha sighed. What she wouldn’t give to be back on the moon now. “What did she buy you? Soap? A seventy five pence soap?” 

“Oh, I'm never talking to your family again!” and Annalise was storming off. That started a chain reaction of more shouting, and people running after other people, until Martha was left alone. She was trying to blink back tears when she caught a newly familiar face standing at the street corner. 

The Doctor saw Martha notice him. He smiled slyly and slipped back into an alleyway. Deciding her night couldn’t get any worse, Martha started walking. She had to round two corners before she found him.

He was leaning against a blue telephone box. Not-Marie was leaning on the other side, grinning from ear to ear. The Doctor was wearing a brown suit now, with a long trench coat. Not-Marie was wearing a long flowy shirt and tight pants. They were a strange sight, the pair of them, but Martha can’t find it in herself to be nervous.

“I went to the moon today,” she said like she was afraid they wouldn't believe her either.

“Bit more peaceful than down here,” the Doctor joked. 

“You never even told me who you are,” Martha said, stepping forward. 

“The Doctor,” he insisted.

“I’m a little more complicated.” Not-Marie shrugged. “I could just stick with Marie.” That got the Doctor to move from his casually leaning position and give her a long-suffering look.

“Oh, come on.” 

“Kat,” she finally decided. “Call me Kat.”

“What, not ‘the Cat’,” Martha teased. Kat grinned wider, if possible, but said nothing. “What sort of species?” Martha forged ahead. “It's not every day I get to ask that.”

“I'm a Time Lord,” the Doctor answered.

“Right! Not pompous at all, then.” Martha had meant to tease, to flirt even, and was rewarded with the smallest of smiles from the man.

“For what it’s worth,” Kat jumped in. “I’m mostly human.”

“Mostly?” Martha had asked.

“We just thought-” The Doctor clearly did not want to follow where that train of thought lead. “-since you saved my life and I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing.” He tossed the tool in his hand. “You might fancy a trip.”

“What, into space?” Martha’s heart rate shot up.

“Well-”

“But I can't. I've got exams,” Martha lamented. “I've got things to do. I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent. I've got my family going mad.” 

“If it helps,” Kat jumped in again. “We can travel in time as well.”

“Get out of here,” Martha dismissed immediately.

“It’s great,” Kat offered. “I got to punch Andrew Jackson in the jaw. Knocked him right out, it was  _ brilliant _ .”

“Come on now, that's going too far,” Martha protested.

“Punching a president?” Kat almost sounded offended.   
  


“Time travel.”

“I'll prove it.” The Doctor turned and vanished into the box. Kat stopped leaning against it and stepped level with Martha. They watched as the box pulsed and whoosed and vanished into thin air with a wheezing sound.

“What’s he gonna do, bring me a video of you punching Andrew Jackson?” Martha said sarcastically. 

Kat laughed. “No, but I do have that. Want to see?”

Then the box was back. The Doctor walked out, holding his tie in his hand and looking extremely smug. “Told you.”

Martha shook her head and backed away from the box. “No, but, that was this morning. Did you? Oh, my God. You can travel in time.” Martha sounded breathless, even to her own ears. The Doctor was clearly enjoying this, smirking the whole time he put his tie back on and fixed his collar. Kat adjusted the watch on her wrist casually, as if this were an everyday occurrence for them. “But hold on. If you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?”

“Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden,” the Doctor said grimly.

“Can’t mess with fixed points,” Kat agreed. “It’s just not worth the trouble.”

“Except for cheap tricks,” the Doctor added in the same serious tone. 

“And that's your spaceship?” Martha walked forward and ran her hand along the wood of the door.

“It's called the TARDIS,” the Doctor started. 

“Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” Kat finished. 

“Your spaceship's made of wood,” Martha observed. “There's not much room. We'd be a bit intimate.” The Doctor simply reached over and pushed the TARDIS door open.

“Take a look.”

Martha took about four steps into the impossibly large room on the other side. Her eyes swept the room with wonder. “No, no, no.” She stepped back out into the alleyway and circled the box once. “But it's just a box.” She stuck her head in the door again. “But it's huge!” she shouted, mostly to see if it would echo. “How does it do that?” She knocked on the door. “It's wood. It's like a box with that room just rammed in.” She paused. “It's bigger on the inside.”

“Is it? Hadn't noticed,” the Doctor said. Martha was too lost in wonder to notice the sarcasm. 

“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner,” Kat joked. The Doctor shut the door, removing his coat and throwing it over the nearest coral strut with practiced familiarity. He marched right up to what looked like a console in the middle of the room. “Right then, let's get going.” 

<...>

I ran past Martha and joined the Doctor at the console. I pressed a few buttons absently, but really I was watching his face. I remembered what came next.

“But is there a crew, like a navigator and stuff?” Martha asked, circling the room. I knew all too well, it looked much too big for just two people. “Where is everyone?”

“Just us.” The Doctor’s expression was guarded. 

“He’s teaching me,” I said more to remind the Doctor than to tell Martha. He looked at me and offered a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“All on your own?”

I danced back around the console and rested my hand on the Doctor’s back. He sagged against the console, turning some knobs half-heartedly. To an outsider, he probably looked fine, like nothing was affecting him. The TARDIS hummed worry to me. “Not always,” I prompted.

“Sometimes I - we - have... guests.” I could see how much even that hurt to say. “I mean some friends, travelling alongside. I had- There was recently- Friend of mine - ours.” The words were getting stuck in his throat. I pressed my hand harder to his back and reached to press the same buttons he was. 

“Rose, her name was. Rose.” The Doctor rushed the words out, like they stung his mouth to say. “And…” He paused for a long time. “We were together. Anyway.” I could feel even the TARDIS cringe at his word choice.

“Where is she now?” Martha asked. 

“With her family. Safe,” I promised. I pulled away to give the Doctor a moment to himself. “She's fine.” The Doctor looked up from the scanner with a sudden fire in his eyes.

“Not that you're replacing her.” He pointed at Martha

“Never said I was,” she defended.

“Just one trip to say thanks. You get one trip, then back home,” the Doctor lashed out. Martha tried not to look hurt. I offered her a sympathetic look. “I'd rather be on my own.” The Doctor broke away from me, and I tried to pretend I was an exception. 

“You're the one that kissed me,” Martha teased. I frowned. Not the time.

“That was a genetic transfer,” the Doctor spit.

“And if you will wear a tight-”

“Martha,” I interrupted. She looked at me. I shook my head, and her entire expression changed.

“For the record? I'm not remotely interested,” she lied. “I only go for humans.”

“Good,” the Doctor said quietly. “Well, then.” He danced around the console. “Close down the gravitic anomaliser, fire up the helmic regulator.” I was already standing where he needed to be next. 

“And, the hand brake.” I flipped the switch. I couldn’t have stopped my smile if I wanted to. The Doctor’s manic grin surely matched my own. 

“Ready?” we asked.

“No,” Martha admitted with a shake of her head. The Doctor and I both put our hands on the last lever.

“Off we go.” The trip was as bumpy as always, with the Doctor and I skidding around trying to do damage control. There was a particularly big jolt that had us all clinging to the console for dear life.

“Blimey, it's a bit bumpy,” Martha shouted over the chaos.

“Well, you know-” I pressed a button that I was pretty sure was an extra shield. “Time potholes and all that.” The Doctor laughed and reached across the console towards Martha.

“Welcome aboard, Miss Jones.” She stretched to reach and shook his hand.

“It's my pleasure, Mister Smith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! This was actually the first chapter I wrote for this story! Also, second fun fact, FUCK 7th US president Andrew Jackson!
> 
> Also, sorry this was a day late. I, uh… I got engaged.)


	8. The Shakespeare Code

The TARDIS flew a bit bumpier than she had in a while, probably because she wasn’t letting me switch any of the stabilizers on _. _ The Doctor didn’t seem to notice the control’s lack of response, which actually explained a lot.

“But how do you travel in time? What makes it go?” Martha asked with the widest grin. She was still clinging to the console for dear life, but she seemed thrilled by that.

“Oh, let's take the fun and mystery out of everything,” the Doctor whined. “Martha, you don't

want to know. It just does.”

“He won’t tell me either,” I told her from the other side of the console. “Says there aren’t words in English to describe it correctly.”

“Hold on tight!” the Doctor shouted. Martha apparently didn’t hold on tight enough. The TARDIS landed, her grip slipped, and she fell to the floor. The Doctor pushed off from the console snatched his coat from where he’s thrown it earlier.

“Blimey,” Martha said, picking herself up off the floor. “Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?”

“Yes, and I failed,” the Doctor said, snagging Martha’s jacket from the jumpseat and shoving it in her hands. I pulled up a piece of the floor and started digging my own outfit out. “Now, make the most of it. I promised you one trip, and one trip only. Outside this door, brave new world.”

“I liked that book,” I mused, pulling on the long skirt I’d hidden in the console room earlier over the leggings I was wearing and tucking my shirt into it. The Doctor stopped at the door and gave me a look.

“You  _ enjoyed _ reading  _ Brave New World _ ?” he asked. I shrugged on a shawl, tying it as I walked.

“Yeah, it was weird and kinda gross, but it was good literature,” I defended. “Had to read it for school. Only book that year I didn’t hate.” I stopped in front of the Doctor. “ _Fuck Catcher in the Rye,”_ I muttered. “Holden Caulfield can go die in a fire.” The Doctor laughed lightly, then we turned back to Martha, who was still standing sort of stunned by the console.

“Where are we?” she asked. The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

“Take a look.” He pulled the TARDIS door open and leaned against it. “After you.” Despite the excitement written all over Martha’s face, she walked slowly to the doors. I stepped out after her, the Doctor closing the door behind us.

Elizabethan England smelled terrible and frankly didn’t look much better. Everything was grimy and colored in sepia tones. The torches that burned at intervals down the street didn’t provide much light. People, also dressed in mostly browns and blacks, were hanging laundry from balconies and talking and milling around.

“Oh, you are kidding me. You are so kidding me. Oh, my God, we did it. We traveled in time,” Martha breathed, voice cracking at the end. The Doctor looked around with childlike glee, and I wondered if he’d chosen this trip for himself too. Lord only knew we deserved a stress-free outing. “Where are we? No, sorry. I got to get used to this whole new language. When are we?”

Before I could answer, the Doctor grabbed our shoulders and yanked us back toward the TARDIS. A man shouted from a window above and dumped a bucket down into the street. I gagged at the smell and buried my face in my shawl.

“Somewhere before the invention of the toilet,” the Doctor said like he was only remembering that detail now. “Sorry about that.”

“I've seen worse,” Martha dismissed. “I've worked the late night shift A+E.” The Doctor took a few steps forward. Marth nearly lunged for him, fear flaring suddenly in her eyes. “But are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?”

“Of course we can,” the Doctor answered immediately. “Why do you ask?”

Martha gives him an ‘are you serious’ look. “It's like in the films.” She turned to me with the same expression. “You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race.”

“Look, I love Ray Bradbury as much as the next literature enthusiast,” I said, stepping carefully around the puddle of waste. “Very talented man, but he got time travel completely wrong.”

“Tell you what, though, don't step on any butterflies.” The Doctor turned to start walking away, then snapped back to us. “What have butterflies ever done to you?” The Doctor, impatient as always, didn’t wait for an answer, instead turned and started walking.

“What if, I don't know-” Martha shot me a cheeky smile. She was grasping at straws and we both knew it. “-what if I kill my grandfather?” 

“Are you planning to?” the Doctor asked, turning around but not stopping.

“Cause if you are we might be a few decades out,” I added, checking my watch.

“No,” Martha laughed

“Well, then,” the Doctor dismissed. 

“And this is London?” Martha asked, beaming.

“I think so. Round about, um-”

“1599,” I said, tapping the watch. The Doctor looked a bit like a kicked puppy. I rolled my eyes. “Not my fault your old watch is faster.”

“I should never have given you that.” I shoved my arm behind me.

“No way in hell I’m giving it back, Doctor,” I said, serious tone not matching either of our smiles. “You can pry this watch off my cold, dead body.”

“Oh, but hold on,” Martha started again. “Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?” 

The Doctor looked bewildered. “Why would they do that?”

“Not exactly white, in case you haven't noticed,” Martha said. She pointed to her face, to help mark that point. At his bewildered expression, it occurred to me the Doctor actually might not have noticed, like it was something that just didn’t matter.

“I'm not even human,” he countered. “Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me. Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. Look over there.” The Doctor pointed to where a man was shoveling manure into a bucket. “They've got recycling.” We passed two men drinking something out of grimy mugs and chatting. “Water cooler moment.”

“And the world will be consumed by flame,” a priest recited as we walked passed. 

“Global warming.” I was inclined to believe the Doctor was having a little too much fun. “Oh, yes, and entertainment. Popular entertainment for the masses.” He paused, looking around, trying to find out exactly where we’d landed. “If I'm right-”

“Could’ve known for sure if you just checked the scanner for once,” I teased. 

“Oh, stop it,” the Doctor protested. “We're just down the river by Southwark, right next to-” The Doctor snagged my hand, and I managed to grab Martha’s before he was running and pulling us along with him. We rounded one corner, and-. “Oh, yes, the Globe Theatre!” the Doctor enthused, dropping my hand. “Brand new. Just opened. Though, strictly speaking, it's not a globe, it's a tetradecagon, fourteen sides, containing the man himself.” He turned to us, smiling. I started bouncing on my heels, ready to run again.

“Whoa, you don't mean.” The Doctor smiled turned smug at Martha’s shocked expression. “Is Shakespeare in there?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said in the way only Ten could. He offered his arm to Martha. “Miss Jones, will you accompany me to the theatre?”

“Mister Smith, I will,” Martha said, very excited. 

“In that case, I’ll just head back to the TARDIS,” I teased, taking a few steps back before anyone could stop me.

“When you get home-” The Doctor was talking to Martha, but he reached back without looking and grabbed my arm. “-you can tell everyone you've seen Shakespeare.”

“Then, I could get sectioned!” Martha said cheerfully.

<...>

The performance finished, and the packed in audience exploded in applause. It was a good show, and I was even proud to say that I only had to ask the Doctor why a joke was funny about twice. 

“That's amazing! Just amazing,” Martha enthused. She was clearly having the time of her life. The Doctor was beaming too. It was the first real, long-lasting smile I’d seen on him since losing Rose, so when Martha said “It's worth putting up with the smell”, I couldn’t help but agree. “And those are men dressed as women, yeah?” 

“London never changes,” the Doctor said fondly.

“Where's Shakespeare?” Martha asked after a second. “I want to see Shakespeare. Author! Author!” She stopped when the Doctor turned and I gave her a look. “Do people shout that? Do they shout Author?” she asked sheepishly. 

“Author! Author!” started a man directly behind me. I jumped, nearly crashing into five different people. I would really have preferred the box seating, but that would have required remembering to bring money. 

Pretty soon, the whole crowd has picked up Martha’s chant. “Well,” the Doctor drawled. “They do now.”

A man came out from backstage, and the chanting turned into roaring applause. Shakespeare himself walked forward, jumping and showing off the crowd. I almost rolled my eyes.

“He's a bit different from his portraits,” Martha commented.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Much more  _ Shakespeare in Love  _ than I was expecting.” 

“Genius,” the Doctor said. “He's a genius. The genius. The most human human there's ever been. Now we're going to hear him speak.” He sounded so excited, like a kid getting to see his favorite character at Disney World. “Always he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words.” 

“Ah, shut your big fat mouths!” Shakespeare called from the stage. The crowd roared with laughter. The Doctor looked slightly put out, more disappointed than confused.

“Oh. Well.”

“Now you know how I felt meeting Jules Verne,” I teased. I reached behind Martha to smack the Doctor’s shoulder, but he kept his eyes fixed on the stage. “Also Shakespeare’s writing is at least 25% dick jokes, so I really don’t know why you expected different.”

“You've got excellent taste, I'll give you that!” Shakespeare jeered at the audience. “Oh, that's a wig.” The crowd roared, but I don’t get a chance to ask why that was funny before Shakespeare was talking again. “I know what you're all saying. ‘ _ Love’s Labour's Lost, _ that's a funny ending, isn't it? It just stops. Will the boys get the girls?’ Well, don't get your hose in a tangle, you'll find out soon.”

The crowd pitched up in noise again, the occasional ‘when’ breaking through the din. “Yeah, yeah. All in good time,” Shakespeare assured. “You don't rush a genius.” The playwright bowed, then stumbled backward like he’d been hit. I winced at a sudden sharp pain at the back of my head, but the crowd fell blessedly silent, and the pain nearly faded.

“When? Tomorrow night.” The silence did not last. “The premiere of my brand new play. A sequel, no less, and I call it  _ Love's Labour's Won _ !” The adoring, rapturous crowd did not help my sudden headache with their reaction to that idea. 

I pinched my eyes closed and tried to will the pain away. After a moment, someone tugged at my arm, pulling with them and out of the theater. The pain ebbed slightly the further we got from the stage until I was ok enough to open my eyes again.

“I'm not an expert, but I've never heard of  _ Love's Labour's Won _ ,” Martha mused.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said slowly. “The lost play. It doesn't exist, only in rumours. It's mentioned in lists of his plays but never ever turns up. And no one knows why.” I could hear in his voice how much this intrigued him, how much he wanted to stay.

“Have you got a mini-disc or something? We can tape it. We can flog it. Sell it when we get home and make a mint.” Martha didn’t really sound serious when she said it, but the Doctor didn’t seem to notice.

“No,” he said simply, frowning

“That would be bad,” Martha said sarcastically. I laughed quietly along with her chuckle and bit my tongue around a whimper because that  _ did not  _ help the headache.

“Yeah, yeah.” Luckily, the Doctor didn’t seem to notice me. I didn’t need him kicking up a fuss and sending me back to the TARDIS because I had a headache.

“How come it disappeared in the first place?” Martha asked in a tone that implied she thought the Doctor had the answer.

“Well…” I could hear in his sigh the moment he gave in to his curiosity. “I was just going to give you a quick little trip in the TARDIS, but I suppose we could stay a bit longer.”

<...>

The Doctor was, quite frankly, too excited to at the prospect of meeting Shakespeare face to face. He ran far ahead of Martha and me and didn’t even bother to knock when he found the door. “Hello!” I cleared my throat and nodded to the door. He knocked but didn’t wait for permission to walk in. “Excuse me, not interrupting, am I? Mister Shakespeare, isn't it?” 

“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Shakespeare groaned. The other two men seemed amused at the playwright's suffering. I could imagine, given what he was putting them through _. _ “Who let you in? No autographs. No, you can't have yourself sketched with me. And please don't ask where I get my ideas from,” he recited like he’d had to say it a million times. Martha and I peeked out from behind the Doctor. “Thanks for the interest. Now be a good boy and shove-” Shakespeare stopped talking when he caught sight of Martha.

“Hey, nonny nonny,” he said, slightly breathless. “Sit right down here next to me. You two get sewing on them costumes. Off you go.” The men didn’t, staring at each other in shock. The barkeep walked in shaking her head.

“Come on, lads,” she said. “I think our William's found his new muses.” Shakespeare didn’t even seem to notice her, so transfixed was he on Martha.

“Sweet ladies.” Oh, and me too apparently. I sighed, and when we sat, I took the chair farthest from the desk. “Such unusual clothes. So fitted.” I knew he was talking to Martha, but I still tugged my shirt away from my body. Martha, on the other hand, seemed delighted.

“Erm, verily, forsooth, egads,” she said.

“No, no,” the Doctor said quietly. “Don't do that. Don't.” I laughed and didn’t miss the way Shakespeare's attention swiveled to me. I lifted my shawl to cover my face. The Doctor cleared his throat and held up the psychic paper.

“I'm Sir Doctor of TARDIS, this is my sister, Miss Katelyn Laurin, and our companion, Miss Martha Jones,” the Doctor explained. Shakespeare just stared at the paper a second. 

“Interesting,” the man mused. He looked from the paper to meet the Doctor’s eyes and smirked. “That bit of paper. It's blank.”

“Oh, that's…” The Doctor dropped the paper and smiled. Martha looked at the physic paper, confused. “Very clever. That proves it. Absolute genius.” 

“No, it says so right there.” Martha pointed to prove her point. I tried to look at the physic paper, but once glance caused the pain to spike again. “Sir Doctor. Katelyn Laurin. Martha Jones. It says so.” 

“I say it's blank,” Shakespeare argued. 

“Psychic paper,” the Doctor explained. “Um, long story. Oh, I hate starting from scratch.” 

“Psychic?” Shakespeare asked. “Never heard that before and words are my trade. Who are you exactly?” He lost interest in whatever the Doctor was going to say before he’d even breathed to say it and turned to Martha again. “More's the point, who is your delicious blackamoor lady?”

“What did you say?” Martha asked, incredulous.

“Oops. Isn't that a word we use nowadays?” Shakespeare tried. “An Ethiop girl? A swarth? A Queen of Afric?”

“Better quit while you're behind there, Will,” I warned. He opened his mouth to probably throw some line my way. “Martha's from a far-off land,” I rushed before he could. “Freedonia. We’re just visiting.”

“Excuse me! Hold hard a moment,” said a voice from the doorway. We all turned to the door to see a very well dressed man storm in. I’d never been more glad to be interrupted by a government censor. “This is abominable behaviour. A new play with no warning? I demand to see a script, Mister Shakespeare. As Master of the Revels, every new script must be registered at my office and examined by me before it can be performed.”

“Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll send it ‘round,” Shakespeare responded, unfazed.

“I don't work to your schedule, you work to mine. The script, now!” the censor demanded. 

“I can't.”

“Then tomorrow's performance is canceled.” 

“It's all go around here, isn't it?” Martha muttered. Shakespeare smiled, even as he stared the censor’s retreating back.

“I'm returning to my office for a banning order. If it's the last thing I do,  _ Love's Labour's Won _ will never be played!” Then he stormed out of the room. Shakespeare let out a deep sigh.

“Good old Lynley,” he said, lifting his mug like a toast. “Always working to quiet me down. Hasn’t succeeded yet.” The Doctor turned in his chair slightly and gave me a look. 

‘That simple?’ he was asking. I gave him a ‘do you really believe that?’ look in response. He sighed.

Martha picked up one of the mugs of beer from the table and took a sip, which was brave of her. “Well then, mystery solved. That's  _ Love's Labour’s Won _ over and done with,” she sighed. “Thought it might be something more, you know, more mysterious.”

Because the universe loves proving people wrong, no sooner had the words left Martha’s mouth than someone screamed in the courtyard below. We were up and running in an instant, down and out into the courtyard. Lynley, was stumbling around, spitting water and holding his throat. 

Fuck, I’d forgotten.

“It's that Lynley bloke,” Martha realized.

“What's wrong with him?” the Doctor wondered. “Leave it to me. I'm a doctor.” He ran forward and grabbed one of Lynley’s arms.

“So am I, near enough,” Martha added, running to the man’s other side. 

I ran forward too, tapping urgently on my bracelet, but the nanogenes couldn't do anything about drowning. 

Just another life I failed to save.

Normally, I would have wallowed in that for a minute, but I didn’t get a chance when the headache returned full force. I could almost hear voices in the back of mind, which was really worrying. Lynley’s eyes went wide. I squeezed mine shut _.  _ Lynley cried out as much as he could and collapsed. 

I gasped and stumbled back into a wall because as soon as he did, the headache faded to a dull throb. 

“Got to get the heart going,” I heard Martha say. I peeled my eyes back open to watch. She opened Lynley’s mouth, probably to start CPR, but jerked back when water came pouring out. She and the Doctor had a brief, very quiet conversation before he shot to his feet again.

“Good mistress, this poor fellow has died from a sudden imbalance of the humours. A natural if unfortunate demise,” the Doctor lied. “Call a constable and have him taken away.” 

The barkeep agreed, turning quickly to do just that. With the headache not currently at crippling levels of pain, I walked forward and crouch next to the body.

“And why are you telling them that?” Martha asked.

“This lot still have got one foot in the Dark Ages,” the Doctor explained quietly. “If I tell them the truth, they'll panic and think it was witchcraft.”

“Okay, what was it then?” The Doctor paused for a long time, hard set eyes flicking back and forth between me and Martha.

“Witchcraft.”

<...>

The group walked back into Shakespeare's room considerably slower than they’d left it. The Doctor’s words kept playing over and over in Martha’s mind.

_ Witchcraft. _   
  


“I got you a room, Sir Doctor. I’m sorry we’ve only got the one,” the barkeep apologized. “You, Miss Laurin, and Miss Jones are just across the landing.”

“Thank you very much, Mistress,” Kat responded.

“Poor Lynley. So many strange events,” Shakespeare said, sitting down behind his desk. “Not least of all, this land of Freedonia where a woman can be a doctor?” Martha tried not to show how tedious this was getting. She shot Kat a quick look. Kat let out a long sigh in response. 

“Where a woman can do what she likes,” Martha defended. To his credit, Shakespeare accepted that answer with nothing more than a hum.

“And you, Sir Doctor. How can a man so young have eyes so old?" Shakespeare asked. Martha didn’t miss how Kat stepped closer to the Doctor.

“I do a lot of reading,” he responded flatly.

“A trite reply,” Shakespeare praised. The Doctor smiled ever so slightly. “Yeah, that's what I'd do. And you?” Kat started when the man turned to her like she’d forgotten she was visible. “When Lynley came into this room you looked at him as if he were dead already. How could you know?”   
  


“Experience,” Kat answered, so quiet Martha barely heard her. Shakespeare shook his head fondly at her enigmatic reply.

“Siblings indeed,” he declared. “Miss Jones, you look at them like you're surprised they exist.” Martha had hoped her glance at them had been subtle, but considering they were all looking back know, she had probably failed. “They’re as much of a puzzle to you as they are to me.” Martha glanced at the… siblings, trying to keep her expression schooled. All she was meet with were twin completely unreadable expressions.

“I think we should say goodnight,” Martha decided, tired, and left the room without waiting for a response. 

She found the room they’d been given easily. It was small, only a bed and wardrobe to be seen. She was just looking inside the wardrobe when she heard the floor creak. 

“It's not exactly five star, is it?” Martha joked. 

“Oh, it'll do,” the Doctor decided. He lingered a bit in the doorway, surveying the room. Kat made her way to the one bed and sat on the edge. Neither of the others seemed even a little bit put out by the accommodations. “We've seen worse.”

“Like that cabin on Andorra 3,” Kat groaned. The Doctor makes a noise of agreement. “Sometimes I still find that sand in my hair.” Kat ran her hands through her hair as if to prove the point.

“I haven't even got a toothbrush,” Martha added. The Doctor patted his hands over all his pockets before reaching into his suit jacket and producing a toothbrush.

“Contains Venusian spearmint,” he explained. Martha took it with only slight apprehension and no intention of putting it anywhere near her mouth.

“Any chance you’ve also got some painkillers and a glass of water in your pockets?” Kat asked. Martha finally looked closer at her. Kat had her head in her hands, every muscle in her body tense. She was clearly in pain.

“Why? What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked before Martha could, circling the bed and crouching in front of Kat.

“Don’t get your pinstripes in a twist, Doc. It’s just a headache,” she said. Martha moved to the other side of the bed as well, years of medical schooling kicking in.

“For how long?” Martha asked. Kat took a deep breath.

“Dear Lord,” she emphasized. “It’s a  _ headache.  _ It’s not the first time I overextended myself.” The Doctor raised his hands to her face, but Kat caught them and pulled them away from her face. “You don’t need to check. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just tired.”

“Oh, well, in that case.” The Doctor lifted his hands to the sides of Kat’s head again.

“Doctor, don’t you da-” As soon as his fingers meet her temples, she slumped down. The Doctor caught her and lowered her gently to the pillows and lifting her legs into the bed.

“What’d you do?” Martha asked, slightly worried and a tiny bit scared.

“Oh, nothing much,” the Doctor dismissed. “Telepathic knockout, like she was doing at the hospital.” He stood back up and went to stare out the window. Martha watched Kat with some envy. She was exhausted too, but she had far too many questions.

“So, magic and stuff.” Martha took a few steps toward the window. “That's a surprise. It's all a bit Harry Potter.” The Doctor turned back around and smiled.

“Wait till you read book seven,” he said slowly. “Oh, I cried.”

“But is it real, though?” Martha breathed. “I mean, witches, black magic, and all that, it's real?” 

“Course it isn't!” the Doctor insisted. From the way he glanced quickly to where Kat was on the bed, Martha got the impression she would have argued that point.

“Well, how am I supposed to know? I've only just started believing in time travel. Give me a break,” Martha laughed. 

“Looks like witchcraft, but it isn't. Can't be.” The Doctor started pacing. Martha got more tired just watching him. “There's such a thing as psychic energy- Oh, psychic energy.” He stopped for a bit and turned to the bed. “That’s what gave Katelyn that headache. After all the hospital today, her defenses would be a bit weak.” He paused for a while, long enough for Martha to decide to put down the candle she was holding and lay on the bed.

“But a human couldn't channel it like that,” the Doctor seemed to finally decide. “Not without a generator the size of Taunton and I think we'd have spotted that. No, there's something we’re missing, Martha. Something really close, staring me right in the face and I can't see it.” Martha had been watching the Doctor’s face closer the whole time he paced and explained, so she didn’t miss the subtle shift from confusion to something more guarded.

“Rose would know,” he said quietly. Martha’s small smile faded. “A friend of mine, Rose.” That was not the tone one used to talk about a friend. “Right now, she'd say exactly the right thing.” The Doctor paused, and Martha got the impression that he was imagining  _ Rose _ here instead of her. 

What had happened to Rose?

“Still, can't be helped,” the Doctor said. “You're a novice, never mind. We'll take you back home tomorrow.” 

“Great,” Martha snapped. She turned on her side and blew out the candle. 

<...>

Somehow, Martha had managed to fall asleep on the rock of a mattress Elizabethan England provided. Which made it all the more annoying that she was woken up only a few hours later by… 

Wait, was that a scream? 

Martha’s eyes snapped open. She saw the Doctor run out and was up and after him immediately. They ran all the way to Shakespeare’s room. When the Doctor slammed the door open the bard startled awake, looking like he’d been dead to the world. The bar owner was laying on the floor as if someone had just struck her. The Doctor immediately went to check on her, so Martha ran to the open window. Shakespeare mumbled groggily behind her, but Martha couldn’t find an ounce of concentration to spend on him. 

There… There was a… woman… flying… on a… broom. 

“Her heart gave out,” the Doctor said behind her. “She died of fright.”

Martha managed to collect herself enough to speak. “Doctor?”

He ran up behind her and looked out the window. “What did you see?”

Marth blinked mouth opening and closing for a second. Her brain knew what she was seeing, but her mouth refused to voice it. After all… how could it be real? But there it was. A- A- “A witch,” Martha said. The Doctor stared at her, then back out the window.

“Where is your sister?” Shakespeare asked, still clearly groggy and confused. The Doctor and Marth turned around. Kat was not behind them. The Doctor tore back out of the room, grabbing the coat he’d apparently left behind earlier. Martha wasn’t far behind.

Once the Doctor was back in their room, he turned in a full circle, surveying every inch of the room. Martha looked from him to Kat, who’d barely moved since she'd laid down earlier. Everything seemed fine.

“Heavy sleeper, isn’t she?” Martha asked, grasping at anything that seemed even slightly normal. The Doctor visibly relaxed.

“When she wants to be,” he said. He walked over to Kat and laid his coat over her like a blanket. Martha felt a sort of affection by proxy when Kat’s unconscious response was to curl into a ball and bury herself in the coat. 

<...>

I woke up in the morning well-rested and  _ irritated _ . Yes, I had definitely needed sleep. No, I would not have slept well enough on my own. Was I going to let the Doctor know that? Absolutely not.

I had plans to give him a piece of my mind until I sat up, and realized that at some point in the night he’d gotten his coat and laid it over me, since I was laying on the blankets on the bed. He knew I had trouble sleeping without blankets.

Damn him and his sentimentality. 

Damn me and  _ my _ sentimentality too, apparently, because instead of just leaving the coat on the bed, I slipped my arms through the sleeves and went to find the others. I found them quickly, just across the hall, in Shakespeare's room again. 

“Oh, sweet Dolly Bailey,” said Shakespeare. “She sat out three bouts of the plague in this place when we all ran like rats. But what could have scared her so? She had such enormous spirit.” Shakespeare sat, eyes flicking between Martha and the Doctor, who had taken seats on the other side of his desk. Everyone was silent.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,” I mumbled as I walked into the room and took the last chair. Shakespeare and Martha turned to look, but the Doctor must have sensed me wake up because he didn’t move.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” the Time Lord finished.

“I might use that,” Shakespeare told us.

“You can't. It's someone else's,” the Doctor informed him. Shakespeare frowned. “How are you feeling,” the Doctor said, turning to me.

“Like I really miss my mattress on the TARDIS.”

“But the thing is,” Martha restarted the conversation from before I’d entered the room. We all turned her. “Lynley drowned on dry land, Dolly died of fright, and they were both connected to you.” She stared pointedly at Shakespeare.

“You're accusing me?” he asked, confused.

“No,” Martha said immediately. “But I saw a witch, big as you like, flying, cackling away, and you've written about witches.”

“Mm, that’s one of my favorites,” I said to myself, not entirely awake yet.

“I have? When was that?” Shakespeare asked, even more confused.

“Not, not quite yet,” the Doctor informed Martha quietly. 

“Peter Streete spoke of witches,” Shakespeare realized. The Doctor dropped his head. I could hear the gears turning.

“Who's Peter Streete?” Martha asked.

“Our builder,” Shakespeare said. “He sketched the plans to the Globe.” 

“The architect?” the Doctor said quietly. Shakespeare nodded. “Hold on. The architect! The architect!” The Doctor slammed his hand on the table and shot to his feet. “The Globe! Come on!” He ran and we all shot out behind him. After nearly face planting at the bottom of the stairs, I all but tore the Doctor’s coat off and threw it at him. He caught it, never slowing down, and threw it on.

We didn’t stop running until we’d reached the Globe Theater. Shakespeare and Martha jumped onto the stage, but I stayed ground level with the Doctor.

“The columns there, right?” he asked the air.

“Fourteen sides,” I confirmed. He hummed for a bit, turning in place.

“I've always wondered, but I never asked.” He turned to the stage. “Tell me, Will. Why fourteen sides?”

The playwright shrugged. “It was the shape Peter Streete thought best, that's all. Said it carried the sound well.”

“Fourteen,” the Doctor muttered. “Why does that ring a bell? Fourteen.”

“There's fourteen lines in a sonnet,” Martha offered.

“So there is. Good point,” the Doctor said slowly. He started pacing again, thoroughly ruffling his hair. “Words and shapes following the same design. Fourteen lines, fourteen sides, fourteen facets. Oh, my head.”

“You need the nap now, Doc?” I snarked. 

He ignored me. “Tetradecagon. Think, think, think! Words, letters, numbers, lines!”

“This is just a theatre,” Shakespeare insisted.

“You of all people should know, William Shakespeare,” I said, letting the Doctor rack his mind a little longer. “A theater’s magic. Stand up there, right words, right inflection, right costumes, and lighting and set, you can create  _ anything _ .”

“You can make men weep or cry with joy,” the Doctor added, dragging a hand down his face. “Change them.” He turned in a circle one more time. “You can change people's minds just with words in this place. But if you exaggerate that…” 

“It's like your police box,” Martha told him. “Small wooden box with all that power inside.”

“Oh. Oh, Martha Jones, I like you,” the Doctor said.

“Seconded here,” I said with a smile to the newest companion. “Tell you what, bet Peter Streete would know. Any chance we can talk to him?” 

“You won't get an answer,” Shakespeare said grimly. “A month after finishing this place, lost his mind.”

“Why? What happened?” Martha asked gently.

“Started raving about witches, hearing voices, babbling. His mind was addled.” 

“Where is he now?” the Doctor asked.

“Bedlam,” Shakespeare said like it was final.

“What's Bedlam?” Martha asked.

“Bethlem Hospital. The madhouse.”

“We're going to go there,” the Doctor decided, already turning to run. “Right now. Come on.” Shakespeare called after us, which was probably the only reason the Doctor waited until we were outside the Globe to walk at a pace just short of running. 

“So, tell me of Freedonia, where women can be doctors, writers, actors.” Shakespeare sounded rather excited at the prospect.

“This country's ruled by a woman,” Martha deflected.

“Ah, she's royal,” Shakespeare countered. “That's God's business. Though you are a royal beauty.”

“Whoa, nelly!” Martha said, both shocked and clearly enjoying herself. “I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country.” I only realized she’d stopped walking behind me when the Doctor turned around with an eye roll and walked toward her.

“But Martha, this is Town,” Shakespeare flirted.

“Come on. We can all have a good flirt later,” the Doctor said. 

“Is that a promise, Doctor?” Shakespeare asked, not being at all subtle about checking the Doctor out. 

The Doctor paused for a moment, then turned to me with a dramatic sigh. “Oh, fifty-seven academics just punched the air,” he mumbled.

“And you owe me tickets to  _ Hamilton _ ,” I sing-songed smugly. “Original cast! Now move!”

<...>

Bethlehem “Hospital”. Sometimes the Doctor hated humanity. 

This place hardly qualified as anything more than an elaborate torture chamber. “Does my Lord Doctor wish some entertainment while he waits? I'd whip these madmen.” The flippant way the keeper was talking about these  _ living human beings  _ was not helping the sick feeling. “They'll put on a good show for you. Mad dog in Bedlam.”

“No, I don't!” the Doctor spat, further disgusted at the thought that humans had actually said yes to that. 

There was a reason he tended to steer clear of some areas and times of human history.

“Well, wait here, my lords,” the keeper said. “While I, uh, make him decent for the ladies.” The Doctor glared at the man’s retreating figure, but as soon as he stopped walking a hand curled on his coat sleeve. He didn’t need to look to know that it was Katelyn. Her rage and disgust identified her well enough. She wasn’t even trying to hold it in. 

“So this is what you call a hospital, yeah?” Martha also sounded disgusted. Good. “Where the patients are whipped to entertain the gentry? And you put your friend in here?”

“Oh, it's all so different in Freedonia,” Shakespeare dismissed.

“But you're clever,” Martha kept arguing. “Do you honestly think this place is any good?”

“I've been mad,” Shakespeare said. “I've lost my mind. Fear of this place set me right again.” He looked a million miles away. “It serves its purpose.”

“Mad in what way?” Martha demanded. 

“You lost your son,” the Doctor said. Katelyn stopped bleeding anger.

“My only boy,” Shakespeare said. “The Black Death took him. I wasn't even  _ there _ .”

“I didn't know,” Martha said. “I'm sorry.”

Katelyn let go of the Doctor’s sleeve and put a hand on Shakespeare’s shoulder. She had that look on again, that ancient look that did not belong on a 20-year-old human. The Doctor understood this time at least. They’d all been mad with grief.

“It made me question everything,” Shakespeare continued. “The futility of this fleeting existence. To be or not to be. Oh, that's quite good.”

The Doctor smiled to himself. “You should write that down.”

“Maybe not. A bit pretentious?” Shakespeare mused.

“Give it to a noble,” Katelyn offered. Shakespeare considered that. “Or, better yet, royalty.” The Doctor chuckled, though whether at Katelyn’s cheek or Martha’s concerned expression, even he didn’t know.

“This way, my lord!” the keeper called from down the hallway. The group walked in silence down a few hallways and around a corner. The keeper unlocked a cell and let the group walk ahead of him. 

A man was sitting hunched on a bed in the middle of the room, back to the door. He didn’t react to them entering.

“They can be dangerous, my lord,” the man said, gesturing with his whip toward the man. “Don't know their own strength.”

“I think it helps if you don't whip them,” the Doctor snapped. “Now get out!” The keeper left, looking confused and put out. Katelyn closed the cell door firmly behind him. “Peter?” the Doctor tried, walking around to the front of the man. “Peter Streete?”

“He's the same as he was. You'll get nothing out of him,” Shakespeare said.

“Peter?” Katelyn touched Peter's shoulder. Peter’s head shot up, staring blankly at the wall behind the Doctor. He looked terrified.

The Doctor looked at Katelyn.

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed. Katelyn sat on the edge of Peter’s bed. She turned from the waist and pressed one hand to his left temple. “Hello, Peter,” she said as softly as she could in the noise of Bedlam. “My name is Katelyn. I’m going to help you now.” Peter turned to look at her. She smiled and brought her other hand to the other side of his head.

“Let’s go into the past,” Katelyn suggested. “One year ago. Let your mind go back. Back to when everything was fine.” The Doctor looked over Peter at the other humans. Shakespeare looked pensive, and Martha looked concerned. “Everything that happened was… a story. It was just a story. Let go. That's it. There you go.” Peter started to fall back. Katelyn went with him, gently laying him down, then sitting back up. “Tell me the story, Peter,” Katelyn said with authority.

Peter Street shook for a second, then closed his eyes and started talking. “Witches,” Peter started. “Spoke to Peter. In the night, they whispered. They whispered.” He gestured wildly over his ear until Katelyn grabbed his hand and held it in her own. 

“What did they say?” Katelyn prompted. She was so gentle about it, the Doctor noticed. Always so gentle to the hurting.

“Build the Globe to their design,” Peter said. “They commanded! Their design! The fourteen walls. Always fourteen.”  _ Fourteen.  _ There was that number again. “When the work was done-” Peter laughed. “They snapped poor Peter's wits.”

“Ask him where,” the Doctor said.

“Where did Peter see the witches?” 

“All Hallows Street.”

“Too many words.” The Doctor stood up and ran to the other side of the room. Katelyn tumbled backward off the bed, trying to scramble back, but getting tangled in her skirt.

“What the hell?” Martha shouted, voicing the Doctor’s thoughts perfectly. 

There was a… a woman? A woman was standing right where the Doctor had been, looking exactly like what humans tended to think “witches” looked like, down to the crooked nose and gnarled teeth. “Just one touch of the heart,” she crooned.

“No!”

The woman put her hand on Peter’s chest. He gasped and stared at the ceiling, dead. 

“Witch!” Shakespeare cried. “I'm seeing a witch!”

“Now, who would be next, hmm?” the witch crooned. “Just one touch.” She… well, she cackled. “Oh, oh, I'll stop your  _ frantic hearts _ . Poor, fragile mortals.”

Martha turned and started shaking the cell door. “Let us out!” she screamed. “Let us out!” 

“That's not going to work,” the Doctor said, not taking his eyes off the… witch. Not witch. He’d seen something like her before. “The whole building's shouting that.”

“Who will die first, hmm?” the… well the Doctor was fairly sure she was an alien mused.

“Well, if you're looking for volunteers.” The Doctor tried to step forward, but Katelyn stepped in front of him.

“No! Don't!” Martha shouted.

“Can you stop her?” Shakespeare asked.

“No mortal has power over me,” the alien sneered.

“Oh, but there's a power in words,” the Doctor said. “If I can find the right one. If I can just know you.” Think, think, think. She was almost familiar. When had he learned about her?

“None on Earth has knowledge of us,” the alien sneered.

“Then it's a good thing I'm here,” the Doctor shot back. “Now think, think, think. Humanoid female. Uses shapes and words to channel energy.”

The Doctor felt Katelyn’s fear stutter, felt her pause.  _ That  _ got him to look away from the alien. She had that look on her face when she was remembering something. Katelyn stood up straighter. Oh. And there was her rage again, bright and steady and  _ powerful _ . 

“Vision before me, made from fright,” Katelyn started. The alien looked like she wanted to open her mouth, but couldn’t. “You’ve taken your last life tonight. Though blood and bones mark witch’s rite, I name thee, demon, Carrionite!”

The Carrionite, because Katelyn was right, screamed and vanished in a sharp flash of light. 

There was nothing but silence.

“W-What did you do?” Martha eventually asked, sounding about as stunned as the Doctor felt. Katelyn turned away from the wall and Peter and looked back at the group. Her expression was guarded.

“When did you learn to speak Iambic tetrameter?” the Doctor asked. Katelyn offered him the ghost of a smile.

“Tenth grade English,” she said. “Only good thing that woman ever taught me.” There was a flash of a lie in there, somewhere, but the Doctor decided now was probably not the time. When she lied, it was either her old world or Erika. Those were private conversations. “I named her, Martha.” Katelyn took a deep breath. “There’s always power in a name.”

“But there's no such thing as magic,” Martha argued.

Katelyn shrugged. “What’s that quote? ‘All sufficiently advanced science will look like magic to a less developed society’?” It was close enough, so the Doctor decided not to correct her. “Humans chose mathematics. Carrionites use words instead.”

The Doctor found himself smiling, pride settling between his hearts.

“Use them for what?” Shakespeare asked. The Doctor’s smile faded.

“The end of the world.”

<...>

We decided to regroup in the Inn because if there was no way to hide from the monster of the week, why not go to the place you were most familiar with?

“So…” Martha looked back and forth between the Doctor and I. “What… are Carrionites?”

I waved to the Doctor to tell him to go for it. “The Carrionites disappeared way back at the dawn of the universe,” he explained. “Nobody was sure if they were real or legend.”

Shakespeare stood up straighter. “Well, I'm going for real.”

“But what do they want?” Martha asked.

“Oh, the usual,” I sighed.

“A new empire on Earth,” the Doctor explained. “A world of bones and blood and witchcraft.”

“But how?” Martha insisted. 

The Doctor looked at Shakespeare. “I'm looking at the man with the words.” Martha started. 

“Me?” Shakespeare asked. He sounded about as tired as everyone looked. “But I've done nothing. 

“Hold on, though,” Martha started. “What were you doing last night, when that Carrionite was in the room?”

“Finishing the play,” Shakespeare said. 

The Doctor had that look on his face. “What happens on the last page?”

“The boys get the girls. They have a bit of a dance,” Shakespeare said. “It's all as funny and thought provoking as usual.” I rolled my eyes. “Except those last few lines. Funny thing is, I don't actually remember writing them.”

The Doctor and I exchanged a look. 

“They used you,” he explained. “They gave you the final words like a spell, like a code.  _ Love's Labours Won.  _

“It's a weapon,” we said together.

“The right combination of words, spoken at the right place,” I repeated. 

“With the shape of the Globe as an energy converter!” the Doctor added.

“The play's the thing!” we shouted. 

“And yes, you can have that,” the Doctor said to Shakespeare. Shakespeare looked delighted.

“Got a map, Will?” I asked.

<...>

The map Will found was… something. Upsettingly simple and hopelessly inaccurate. I’d drawn better maps by hand with nothing but paper, a crayon, and sheer stubbornness.

“All Hallows Street,” the Doctor announced, pointing to a spot on the map. “There it is. Katelyn, we'll track them down. Martha and Will, you get to the Globe. Whatever you do, stop that play.”

“Got it,” Martha confirmed.

“We’ll do it.” Shakespeare shook the Doctor’s hand. “All these years I've been the cleverest man around. Next to you two, I know nothing.”

“Oh, don't complain,” Martha teased.

“I'm not. It's marvelous.” Shakespeare looked at me. “What wonders this world has.” I gave him an unimpressed look. “Good luck.” 

“Good luck,” the Doctor parroted. “And be careful.” 

“Once more unto the breach,” I cheered as the Doctor and I stepped out.

“I like that. Wait a minute, that's one of mine!” Shakespeare called after us.

I stuck my head in the door, winked, and ran off.

<...>

“All Hallows Street, but which house?” the Doctor said to himself, turning in circles. “What’s that face for.”

I blinked, not realizing I’d even made a face. “Just thinking about the conversation about the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux we should have had with Martha,” I said. 

The Doctor dragged his hands down his face. “Blimey, no wonder she seemed so calm.” He paused and turned in a circle. “The human race ends right now in 1599 if we don't stop it.”

“So which house?” I finished.

A door creaked open behind us because  _ of course  _ it did.

“Ah,” the Doctor said lightly. “Make that  _ witch _ house.”

We started toward the open door. “Remind me how I threatened your life last time?” I said dryly. “I want to keep upping the stakes.”

“I think you might have peaked at threatening to throw me into a neutron star.”

“You’re right. I should have saved that one.” We walked up a flight of stairs. “I’ll start back at ground zero.”

There was a Carrionite standing across the cluttered room from us, one that looked  _ a lot  _ younger than the one from the asylum.

“I take it we're expected,” the Doctor said.

“Oh, I think Death has been waiting for you a very long time,” The Carrionite said.

“Geez, dramatic much?” I muttered. She glared.

“The power of a name works only once,” she said. “You’re powerless against me,  _ Katelyn Laurin.”  _

I gave an exaggerated gasp, bringing my hand to my forehead like a Victorian woman overcome with the vapors and leaned on the wall behind me. “Just kidding,” I sing-songed. “Looks like we’re both powerless.” The Carrionite snarled and turned on the Doctor.

“Sir Doctor,” she tried. The Doctor just raised his eyebrows. The Carrionite tilted her head in confusion. “Fascinating. Siblings with no name. One lost-” The Carrionite stepped forward. Both the Doctor and I also stepped forward, each attempting to stand in front of the other. The Carrionite smiled and focused on the Doctor. “Ah, and the other but hiding. Why would a man hide his title in such despair?”

We said nothing, just stood with arms held protectively in front of each other, and glared at her. 

The Carrionite tilted her head in the other direction. “Oh, but look,” she continued. “There's still one word with the power that aches.”

“The naming won't work on us,” the Doctor said.

The Carrionite faked a pout. “But your heart grows cold,” she taunted. “The north wind blows and carries down the distant  _ Rose. _ ”

The Doctor surged forward. “Oh, big mistake,” he all but growled. “Because that name keeps me fighting.” He only stopped walking when he’d fully crowded the Carrionite’s space. “The Carrionites vanished. Where did you go?”

The Carrionite turned away from him. “The Eternals found the right word to banish us into deep darkness.”

“And how did you escape?” the Doctor pressed. 

“New words,” she said. I opened my mouth then snapped it back shut. Now was not the time for a debate on ethnocentrism in Linguistics. “New and glittering, from a mind like no other.”

“Shakespeare,” we realized.

“His son perished,” the Carrionite confirmed. “The grief of a genius.” I grabbed the Doctor’s hand. “Grief without measure. Madness enough to allow us entrance.”

“How many of you?”

“Just the three.” The Carrinote didn’t seem too upset by that. “But the play tonight shall restore the rest.” She walked to stand in front of the window. “Then the human race will be purged as pestilence. And from this world, we will lead the universe back into the old ways of blood and magic.”

The Doctor hummed and walked forward.  _ Get behind her,  _ he projected before letting go of my hand _.  _ “Busy schedule. But first, you've got to get past us.” The Doctor walked until he was blocking the Carrionite’s view.

I slipped behind her. 

“Oh, that should be a pleasure, considering my enemy has such a handsome shape.” I almost laughed. She was laying it on  _ thick. _

“Now, that's one form of magic that's definitely not going to work on me,” the Doctor said.

The Carriontie reached forward. I snagged her hand. Immediately, I pressed, trying to get into her mind. It was a brick wall. She threw her other hand out, and quite suddenly I was flying into the wall. 

The Doctor was by my side in an instant. “Are you alright?” I nodded. “Come on, she went out the window. We’ve got to get to the Globe.”

<...>

We started in the wrong direction, but we got there in the end. 

We skidded to a halt two blocks down from the Globe. It almost looked like it was on fire, a red glow hanging in the air, speckled through with black silhouettes. While we stood there thinking  _ shit shit shit shit _ , that priest ran by screaming that “I told thee so!”

“Stage door!” the Doctor shouted, and then we were off again. 

The regular doors slammed shut as we ran past, forcing us around to the stage door anyway. It was already closed, Martha yelling and yanking at it. 

“Stop the play!” the Doctor shouted. The force of the three of us on the door forced it open. “I think that was it. Yeah, I said, stop the play!”

“They kicked me out!” Martha protested. “I only just  _ got  _ back! I had to-”

“I hit my head,” Shakespeare complained, sitting on a chair in the corner and rubbing his head.

“Yeah, don't rub it, you'll go bald,” the Doctor said. A scream, half-way between a cackle and an actual scream came from the stage. “I think that's my cue!”

“Enter stage right,” I agreed.

We ran out onto the stage, Martha and Shakespeare trailing behind. The Carrionites were screaming and laughing, but we couldn't hear over the wind. The young-looking one held an orb out in front of her. Shadows flew into the theatre, slowly growing in size as they circled a bit and flew up into the sky.

The Doctor grabbed Shakespeare and pushed him toward the edge of the stage. “Come on, Will! History needs you!”

Shakespeare looked terrified. “But what can I do?”

“Reverse it!” I shouted.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“The shape of the Globe gives words power-” the Doctor started

“You're the wordsmith!” I finished. 

“But what words?” Shakespeare shouted. “I have none ready!”

“You're William Shakespeare!” the Doctor and I shouted.

“But these Carrionite phrases,” Shakespeare kept protesting. “They need such… precision!”

“I did it!” I shouted. I wasn’t about to mention that Erika and I had come up with that rhyme years ago, mostly to spit our terrible English teacher. “We only need the first draft. Trust yourself. Improvise.”

Shakespeare swallowed visibly and stepped forward. “Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches' plot. You thieve my brains, consider me your toy. My doting Doctor tells me I am not!” 

Up in their box seat, the Carrionite started looking around, worried.

Shakespeare continued. “Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points-” He looked back at the Doctor.

“Seven six one three nine oh!” the Doctor said.

“Seven six one three nine oh!” Shakespeare repeated. “Banished like a tinker's cuss, I say to thee-”

We all stood around for a moment, gaping at each other until Martha shouted “Expelliarmus!”

“Expelliarmus!” the Doctor and I shouted.

“Expelliarmus!” Shakespeare finished.

The Carrionites screamed. Those that were flying in the air, most of them almost out of the Globe’s ceiling, started to be pulled back into the swirling red. Behind us, the doors to backstage burst open. Hundreds of papers flew out, up into the tornados with the shadows.

“ _ Love's Labours Won _ ,” the Doctor said. “There it goes.”

In a ring of silent light, the sky cleared over the globe, and there was silence. Even the telepathic field was quieter. I glanced at the balcony. The Carrionites were gone.

Someone started clapping. Within a few moments, the rest of the audience had joined in. The Doctor and I exchanged a look and ran backstage. We ran around the back hallways, up and into the box seat. The Carrionite’s orb was sitting on the bench seat in the booth. The Doctor picked it up. The Carrionites were inside, screaming and scratching at the glass. 

“Want to raid the costume department?” I asked. 

“ _ Absolutely, _ ” the Doctor said.

<...>

“Good props store back there,” the Doctor cheered as we walked back on stage where Martha and Shakespeare were, covered in costume pieces we’d stolen. “I'm not sure about this though.” He handed me an animal skull. “Reminds me of a Sycorax.” 

I tilted it around. “A bit, yeah.”

“Sycorax,” Shakespeare repeated. We looked over at him. “Nice word. I'll have that off you as well.”

“We should be on ten percent,” the Doctor said. I chuckled. “How's your head?”

“Still aching.”

“Here, I got you this,” the Doctor said. He handed that dumb neck ruff he’d found to Shakespeare, who put it on with only mild confusion.

I gave the Doctor an unimpressed look. “Neckbrace,” he defended. “Wear that for a few days til it's better. Although, you might want to keep it. It suits you.”

“I hate you,” I informed the Doctor. He just smiled.

“What about the play?” Martha asked.

“Gone,” the Doctor said. “We looked all over. Every single copy of  _ Love's Labours Won  _ went up in the sky.”

“My lost masterpiece,” Shakespeare sighed.

“You could write it up again,” Martha said.

“Mmm, better not,” I said. “There's still power in those words. Probably best left forgotten.”

“Oh, but I've got new ideas,” Shakespeare said. “Perhaps it's time I wrote about fathers and sons, in memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet.”

“Hamnet?” Martha said.

“That's him.”

“Ham _ net _ ?”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Anyway,” the Doctor interrupted. “Time we were off. We’ve got a nice attic in the TARDIS where this lot can scream for all eternity-” He shook the Carrionite’s orb around. “-and I've got to take Martha back to Freedonia.”

“You mean travel on through time and space,” Shakespeare said with a smile.

We blinked. “You what?” the Doctor said after a moment.

“You two are from another world like the Carrionites,” Shakespeare said, almost smug. “And Martha is from the future. It's not hard to work out.”

“That's incredible,” the Doctor said.

“My hat off to you sir,” I agreed, taking off the ostentatious feathered hat I’d stolen and plopping it on Shakespeare’s head. (I was wearing a crown with fake gemstones underneath. I was keeping that one).

“We're alike in many ways,” Shakespeare said. “Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady.” Martha’s eyes went wide. The Doctor and I exchanged looks. “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate-”

The street doors to the Globe flew open, and two of Shakespeare’s actors flew in.

“Will!” One shouted. “You'll never believe it. She's here! She's turned up!”

“We're the talk of the town,” the other one said. “She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again.”

“Who?” Martha asked.

The actor looked scandalized. “Her Majesty. She's here.”

And because this was one of those days, an elderly Elizabeth Tudor entered, stage front.

“Queen Elizabeth the First!” the Doctor sounded delighted.

“Doctor?” Elizabeth hissed.

“What?” The Doctor said.

“My sworn enemy.”

“What?”

“Off with his head!”

“What?!” 

“Exit pursued,” I said, turning and running, pulling the Doctor along with me. “Bye Shakespeare!” 

The Queen spit out a few orders, her guards chasing after us. We tore out into the streets in the direction of the TARDIS, fully ignoring the calls of “Stop in the name of the Queen!”

As if that had ever worked on us.

“What have you done to upset her?” Martha shouted. 

“How should I know?” the Doctor shouted. “Haven't even met her yet. That's time travel for you. Still, can't wait to find out.” I snapped my fingers and the TARDIS doors flew open. We ran in. “That's something to look forward to.”

I slammed the doors behind us and we were off again.

Always moving on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M BACK BITCHES!
> 
> Sorry, this was really late. School, stress, capstone paper ect ect. You don’t want to hear my excuses. Anyway, my plan was to finish this story in the Eternal Companion series, and then take an official hiatus. But honestly, I forgot how much I loved writing this. So instead, I’m just gonna… remove any upload schedule. I’m just gonna upload whenever I have time. I’ll keep you posted on if that changes.
> 
> Don’t forget JK Rowling is a TERF and her work contains a lot of racism and antisemitism! Be critical of the media you enjoy.
> 
> Three more chapters after this. See you then.


End file.
